Athena's Raid: Book Two Perdition MC (13 page)

“Raid-“

“He the reason why you freaked when I pushed you against the wall?”

The fact that she didn’t answer him right away was answer enough for him. He hugged her, stroked her body, unable to keep his cock from reaching out to caress her too, but he made himself just stand there and hold onto her until she quit shivering. “Saint put me in touch with a cop in the Williamson IAB. He’s coming in the morning to talk to you, and Nasa’s digging into him so deep his asshole’s gonna be bleedin. Is this a lockdown for you in a titanium vault, or claymores in the front lawn, kind of situation?”

She hiccupped a little laugh, relaxing when he reached out and started to wash her hair, rubbing the suds deep into her scalp, the shower stall filling with the sexy scent of her homemade shampoo. “Don’t think I won’t do it, Roar has a few spare sets of handcuffs, and Nasa has a full on kinky dungeon in the basement at the compound. I will lock you down until this situation is dealt with,” She sighed heavily and tipped her head back to rinse. “I wasn’t sure, but now that he showed up like this, I’m sure.”

“Of?”

“He’s been watching me.”
“Sorry?”

She shivered at his soft growl, opening her eyes to show him that the usually soft lavender of her eyes was a whole three shades darker. Nearly plum colored, because she was afraid. “On and off since after he was released, got off on some kind of probation because his dad has connections and a shit ton of money. That or he sucked someone’s dick to get a reduced charge. He went back to work in the department the week that my uncle got in his wreck, and I got the restraining order, because I didn’t have anyone I trusted immediately on hand to run to if shit got heavy.”

He clenched his jaw so hard that his molars ached, but he wasn’t going to stop her by letting the furious cursing fly free from his mouth. “I got Cruncher, because he’s terrified of dogs, but Cruncher would probably try to make friends. Rosie might have eaten his face off, but not Cruncher. I didn’t know one hundred percent it was him. It could have just been a black Charger parked on the street. And I didn’t want you to think I was some crazy freakazoid or something.”

“Crazy, fucks better.”

Her eyes narrowed at him, her fear dissipating slowly, which was good because he’d rather have her pissed off than scared for what was going to happen next. It was good, because it meant as quickly as the fear had come, it was leaving. Hopefully because she understood that no matter who was at their door threatening her, he would always be standing in the way to protect her. “I can’t tell if you’re saying you’ve fucked crazy women, and they’re better than me, or you’ve fucked other women, and I’m better because I’m crazy.” Yeah, she was going to be okay. He chortled incredulously, finishing up giving her a thorough wash, rinsed himself off and pulled her out of the shower. He wrapped a towel around her to soak up the worst of the damp, then drug her into the bedroom to flick the lights on. “What the hell is that, and were did it come from?”

She was looking at the white leather lounge that was now sitting at the foot of the bed, that clearly in her upset earlier, she hadn’t seen. “That,” He whipped her towel off and spun her around, bending her over the back of the lovely piece of furniture Nasa had given him. The guy was a pervert, but he’d done research on the type of surgery Raid had endured, and told him he needed to be careful with the fucking. Not stop, because obviously that was not happening, but just take it easy. Bought him the chair, made by a buddy of his in town, actually, so he and Athena could have at it whenever they wanted, with the least amount of strain to his back. “Is Nasa’s welcome home gift to us.” She shot him an evil look over her shoulder, trying to push up from off the back of the rounded arch. “I am not in the mood for this,”

He spread one hand over her low back, keeping her down, and slapped her ass hard with the other, all trace of teasing gone from his expression. “That’s fine, cause you’re about to get your ass spanked until it hurts to sit the fuck down. Firstly, for turning your phone off and giving me no way to contact you, and secondly,” He smacked her round ass again, right where her fleshy cheek met her thigh, making her squeal and squirm. “For not telling me about your mother fuckin ex, stalking you! Maybe or not, I’d have believed you, and I’d fucking have made sure you were protected at all times.”
Smack, smack, smack!

“Raid! God damnit-“

She shrieked when he carefully spanked her pussy, but seeing as how his hand came away soaked, he wasn’t worried yet that he’d pushed her too far. He spanked her until her ass was bright pink and her skin hot, “I fully admit I was a fool for using the club business rule as an excuse not to tell you about my appointment in Virginia. For hurting you, by making it sound like your feelings meant dick all to me. You, were stupid for thinking I wouldn’t believe you about your ex stalking you, for not letting me do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

He smacked her beautiful butt one more time, hard enough to sting his own hand, and rubbed to make the burn sink deeper. She was turned on, her pussy spilling so much juice that there was a little trail of it running down the back of the chair, but she was crying too. Melted over the chair, her body relaxed, but crying. He’d dabbled enough to know that it was the body’s way of releasing tension, emotional or otherwise, and he knew what to do now. He whipped a blanket off the end of the bed and pulled her up, into his lap when he sat on the lounge and wrapped her up to keep her warm while her body processed the adrenaline rush. “You’re going to tell me exactly what that pussy did to you, or I swear to Christ you won’t get an orgasm for a month.”

He kissed her ear and cupped the back of her head to keep her cheek pressed to his throat, giving her time to process, while making her feel the continued burn in her ass cheeks by kneading at the hot flesh. It took her a while to get it together, but she wasn’t screaming at him or cussing him out for the spanking, which told him she’d been holding all this in for a long fuckin time, and now that the cork was popped, all that nasty shit inside was pouring out. Like poison from a wound. “At the court hearing, after he was remanded, he threatened me by saying when he got out, he was going to find me, make me pay, and no one would ever find my body.” She murmured against his skin, sending chills racing over him.

Had he not known the guy at all, just met him on the street and been questioned later, he’d one hundred percent say that the guy would be capable of murder. He just had that look, the sort that he’d seen a lot of when he was deployed, the ones who got off on having a gun and not only as a tool of intimidation, but one of pain. Of death. Dennis Lockhart/ Woodward or whatever the fuck his name was, he believed that fucker would be capable of killing a woman. Especially a woman that had kicked his ass and made him feel like the vulnerable piece of shit he was. “Uncle John took him at his word, but honestly I just thought he was blowing smoke out his ass, trying to sound butch or something. Get a rep, so that the guys in prison wouldn’t rape him in the showers or shiv him, being a cop and all.”

Sound butch, threatening a woman who’d beaten him with a baseball bat, beaten a trained cop and embarrassed him, in a courtroom full of witnesses. Oh yeah, that was just smoke. Sure. “Athena,”

“I told you, I was an idiot. I was back from Tahoe for a month when Uncle John and Rosie got in that wreck. I saw Denny’s stupid charger outside the house the day of the funeral. That first time, I didn’t think anything of it. I was grieving. The second time, I went out to get the paper off the lawn and I saw him down the street, talking to the realtor selling the house three doors down from mine. He saw me and gave me this smile that made my gut churn with uneasiness. I had the TRO, and for the most part he abided by it.”

“For the most part?”

“I got phone calls late at night from untraceable numbers, just gross heavy mouth breathing. Then random pictures of myself doing random, every day things in the mail. Cops couldn’t legally do anything, because there was no evidence, and Denny always had an alibi. And they didn’t like me, because I’d taken down one of their own.”

“Baby, my brothers were right there, you wrote to me and told me you saw them. I told you all about the club, what we do, you could have walked up to any one of them and said, ‘I need help’, and they’d have dropped everything to take care of you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Raid,”

“Why?”

She sighed and let her head fell back over his arm, she touched her fingertips to his jaw, her expression matching her tone. Cautious and gentle, “Honey, I was being stalked by a police officer, and had bikers sitting outside my shop. Randomly. I didn’t know who I could trust, and by the time it got bad enough psychologically, Denny messing with me, your letters had stopped coming.”

He drew in a hiss of air, gently pushed her off his lap so he could go get his phone and sent a quick text to Nasa, giving him a firm go, to send all the documentation of Shirley’s mail theft to the proper authorities. That he’d explain later. He sat back down and pulled her back into his arms, pressing his mouth to her brow and cursing himself for being such a mother fucking dumbass. “I told them to leave you be. To just check in, see how things looked. Part of me was thinking if any one of those horny fuckers got to talking to you, they’d steal you away and I’d never get to make you mine. When the letters stopped coming, I’d assumed you’d been getting mine and were choosing to ignore me because I’d shot you down so hard when you asked to come visit me. I’m so fuckin sorry, baby.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Did you tell me about him, about being afraid in any of the letters that didn’t get to me?”

“Once, but the next one I told you to ignore it, because I’d just been being paranoid.”

“When did he get you against the wall? What did he do to make you fear being pinned like that?”

TWENTY ONE

She sighed, pushing her wet hair out of her face to better snuggle up against him, her lips moving soft, like butterfly wings on his throat, her breath warm on his skin. She lingered there long enough, breathing even and slow enough, that he thought she’d fallen asleep. A squeeze to her butt cheek made her squeal a little, and she started talking. He might have smiled, if not for the topic. “Same night I kicked his ass down the stairs. He was pissy that I wasn’t responding to his texts, kept blowing him off for dates and spent so much time writing letters or making candles for you. He was just being a dick, so when he called that night and I told him we weren’t anything serious and that I was done with his whining, he showed up at my place and tried to bully me. Got in my space, pushed me against the wall and slapped me. He probably thought I’d be too scared to not just do what he said, and I was scared. More scared than I’d ever been in my life. Just the look in his eyes, the way he looked at me…you know what I mean?”

She tilted her head back to look up at him, and he nodded, rubbing at one of the drying tear tracks on her cheek with his thumb. He couldn’t imagine anyone ever wanting to hurt her. Yeah, she was sassy as shit, she hopped up and down when she got mad, which was adorable because it made her hair, her tits and her ass bounce deliciously. Not that he’d ever tell her that, but he just did not get it. Using your fists on a woman to make her feel small and scared. “The look on his face when I kneed him in the balls was priceless. I’d never hit anyone before, got mad plenty, but never actually went for it. I just remembered the crazy talks Uncle John had with me in high school about what to do if my dates ever got handsy. He told me if someone put their hands on me with the intent to hurt me, it was my job to make sure they were incapacitated. To keep hitting them until I was sure they couldn’t get up, then run for help. Or a gun. Whichever was closer.”              

Her uncle was a badass. Had been, rather. He’d have loved to meet the guy, thank him for teaching Athena how to be a survivor. He told her so, and she smiled a soft, girly little smile and sniffled, “He’d have liked you.” He grunted to cover how much that meant to him, kissing her softly and held onto her, when all he really wanted to do was go hunt down
Denny
, and rip his fucking cock off. “Sounds like the two of us would’ve gotten along just fine. When was the last time you saw dickhead?” She rolled her lips together and wiggled a little, scrunching up her nose when he growled at her to answer him, “The day we left together to come here. You had my Jeep at the mechanics.”

“Mother…
Athena
!”

“What!? You’d just blown into my life and carried me off into the sunset. I wasn’t going to start our relationship off, however it was going to turn out, by asking you to deal with my shit. You’d have run for the hills and never looked back.”

“You knew that, huh? For sure?”

He was so pissed off he was considering throwing her back over his lap to spank her till she never went another day in her life without remembering the feel of his hand on her ass. “Raid, all I thought I had left was Cruncher. I didn’t want to lose you.” And now he was pissed off, because she wasn’t letting him be pissed off. He sighed and let his brow drop to hers, “What exactly haven’t I done, that’s made you think I haven’t committed to you?” She huffed a little sound and scooted higher into his lap, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.