Never Ever: Book One Perdition MC (17 page)

“The case-“

“You got questions need answered, you give them to Granger to
ask. I don’t see you, she, does not see you. Do you get me?”

“Yes.” He answered tightly, and he nodded. “Good. Hate to
have to sell tickets to the next
smackdown
where my
pregnant wife, kicks your tactical trained ass to the dirt.”

“Kind of difficult not to have my ass handed to me, on
account of not wanting to hurt her.”

“Well, then that just leaves me, doesn’t it?” he clapped the
guy on the shoulder and squeezed until he wheezed with pain, and walked off to
join Ever at the car.

The wake at the compound was a somber affair, not surprising
since it was the first time in twenty years that one of their own had died of
something other than old age or liver failure. It was a shock. A brutal shock,
and while all of them were taking it hard, Ever was taking it worse. Like it
was somehow her fault, or that it was because of her, and everyone seemed to
notice her withdrawal.  Top caught his eye and lifted his hand, hooking a
thumb towards his office and looked pointedly at Ever. He nodded, and took her
hand to lead her down the long hallway, hearing her take a bracing breath
before they got to the door.

He stopped just outside it and tugged on her hand, making her
look up at him, and the pain in her eyes, the tears swimming across those
gorgeous blue eyes of hers, it fuckin gutted him. “Not your fault.” He rasped,
and her lips wobbled. “Not. Your. Fault.” He repeated tightly when she opened
her mouth, not giving her a chance to say anything else because his mouth was
on hers and sipping softly. He stopped when he felt a warm wetness slide over
their lips, stopped when he tasted the salt of her tears. He kissed those away
too, knowing he’d give anything to make her not hurt, feeling useless because
all he could do was kiss her damn tears away and hold her while she grieved.

God, he loved this sexy, strong, ball busting bitch.

Loved her.

She took a deep breath and sat, lifting her eyes to
Top’s
haggard, tired face and wondered if he blamed her. If
he regretted making her part of his family. The way he took her hands and tried
to smile at her, told her he didn’t, and it made a fresh round of tears flood
her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” She managed to force out, and he squeezed her hands
again. “Not a damn thing for you to be sorry about. Pike and Susan went down on
my orders, and the fuckers that killed them, they’re the ones who’re
gonna
be sorry. Know you’re hurting over this, but before
the feds roll in and fuck this all up again, I need your help.” Roar stiffened
behind her, she could hear the creaking of his hands fisting against the back
of the chair she sat in. “I don’t know anything that can help, dad didn’t tell
me his business.”

“No, I know that, baby. But someone does. You told me one of
the guys was in the hospital recovering from a gut shot.”

“Yeah. Um, Krieger. Jonas Krieger. He went by, Harlow.”

“And the other guy who wasn’t among the dead?”

“Connor Talbert,
McGuyver
. Could
fix anything with gum and some tape. I can give
Nasa
descriptions, priors, that stuff I do know. I was usually the one to bring the
bail money.”

Top shook his head and pulled another folded up bandana from
inside his cut, and she found herself laughing a little, wondering if he had an
endless supply of them and who ironed them into perfect little squares. “No
more blowback, girly. Just needed those names. Let Roar take you home,” She
smiled into her damp hankie and pressed her lips together. “I am.”

“Are what?”

“Home.”

“Shit yeah, you are.”

Roar took her upstairs to his old room in the compound and
curled up behind her on the bed where they’d made their son. She fell asleep
with his arms around her and the scent of his pillows surrounding her.

Chapter Eighteen

He was still with her when she woke up, still holding her,
but there was a tension thrumming through him that set her heart to racing.
“Will you go back?” She whispered, too afraid to speak any louder than that.
His hand was rubbing little circles on her belly, but stopped for a second when
she spoke. “Back where?” She took his hand, pulling it up between her breasts
to hug his arm to her chest, holding tight like she could keep him there in the
bed with her forever. “To track down who killed Pike and Susan.” He pressed a
kiss to her shoulder and nuzzled his way through her now loose hair. He must
have unwound it while she slept, “No, baby. Pen and Saint have this one. I’m
not
leavin
you again.”

She nodded, rubbing her lips over the back of his hand,
laying in the soft dark, relieved yet remorseful for having asked Top to get rid
of him for a few days to give her some peace of mind. If he hadn’t come back,
if she’d been standing next to his open grave today, she’d never have peace
again. Life was so short, too short for her to be worried about what might
happen in a few years, a few weeks, or a few days. “Roar?”

“Mm?”

“My list is really long.”

“What list, baby?”

“Stuff I like about you.”

Stillness bled through him, his lips stopping over the
pounding pulse in her throat, a burning brand against her skin that made the
weirdest sense of happiness permeate the grief flowing through her. “I’m making
a new one. Stuff that I love, about you.” His throat working was loud, his
fingers curling around her shoulder tighter, “What’s on it so far?” He rasped
softly, hugging her back those scant few millimeters separating them, “Not
much, you’re kind of an aggravating asshole. But you’re my aggravating asshole,
and I love you.”

“Bout fuckin time,” He muttered, and she scowled, though she
couldn’t be shocked by his response. “I tell you I love you, and you say ‘bout
fuckin time?’” He laughed at her then, shifting and pulled his arm out of her
grip and rolled half away from her, leaving her feeling cold and terribly
vulnerable, but he wasn’t gone for long. He flipped the lamp beside the bed on and
rolled back over to grab her hand, sliding a glittering ring on the fourth
finger of her left hand. She just stared at it, at the tiny diamond dotted
vines that made up the band, and the ten pointed diamond star in the center. It
was perfect, and unique, and it fit like a dream. “Roar,”

“Not
gonna
wait any longer to let
you choose to marry me. You know what it says on my list of things I love about
you?”

“Um,”

“I loved, hearing other people calling you my wife. Flipped
my fuckin switch so hard if we hadn’t been in the police station, you’d have
been fucked ten ways till Tuesday. Loved it, correcting that asshole when he
called you Taggart. Love everything about you. So deal’s off, babe. You don’t
get to walk in eighteen years, you don’t get to walk, because you’re mine. Been
mine since the first time I had you in this bed, I was just too much of a
dumbass to realize it.
Gonna
be mine till the day I
die.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but a heavy fist pounded on
Roar’s door, pissing him off enough to snarl as he jackknifed from the bed and
yanked the door open with a, “What the fuck?” She sat up and took in the look
of shock Saint wore, combined with some kind of heavy emotion not related to
the funeral they’d just attended. “Raid. He’s alive.” Those three words had her
old man making this sound like Saint had just punched him in the belly, while
strangling him at the same time. “What?” Saint swallowed loud enough for her to
hear, and from how Roar was white knuckling the door, this was either the worst
or the very best of news. She wasn’t sure yet. “He just…He called me from a VA
hospital in Virginia. He’s fucked up, but he’s alive. I told Top and he’s on
the phone booking a flight now to go see him and make plans to get him home.”

She tentatively slid her hand up under the back of Roar’s
shirt, not surprised when he reached around and yanked her to his side. “Who’s
Raid?” She asked softly, and her man swallowed what sounded like a painful
lump, “Brother.” He managed to say, and the emotion in that one word brought
tears to her eyes. “You should go with Top, then. Go see him.” He shook his
head, pulling his hand down his face raggedly before dropping a kiss on her
hair. “Can’t, you’re about to pop, and I’m not
leavin
you here. Fucked up how?” She couldn’t lie, it made her heart flop over to know
he’d forgo flying to bring home a brother, for her. And it made her entire body
soften that with that one arm he clutched her to him, and his other hand
settled to rub on her belly, more to settle himself than her, but it was sweet
and it made her melt all that much more. “He got blown up in Afghanistan,
shrapnel tore him up and he can’t walk. Paralyzed from the hips down.”

“Paralyzed?” Roar breathed in horror, and she understood that
not only was it a horrible fate, but made even more so because it meant he
couldn’t ride. Couldn’t feel the free air on his face. Saint nodded, scrubbing
his hand through his hair, “Yeah. But he’s prepping for some surgery that’s
gonna
fix it. He um, he’s got a girl in Nevada he wants
looked in on.” She tipped her face up and touched a kiss to his scruffy jaw,
“Babe, go. It’s okay.” He totally ignored her, his hand firming on her belly
and asked if Saint had given their brother his number. “Yeah. He was
callin
from the hospital phone, I’m
gonna
overnight him a cell in the morning with everyone’s numbers in it.”

“Fuck me.”

“She say yes finally?”

Saint nodded to the rock glittering on her finger, and Roar
grunted as a smile flirted around the edges of his mouth. “Close enough.” She
pinched his nipple and got a swat on the ass in return. She declared she had to
pee, knowing that the two of them needed a minute and retreated to the bathroom
that was so dirty, only a dude could use it and not be bothered by it. She cringed
to actually use the toilet, but was glad when it flushed, and peeked out to see
that Saint had gone and Roar was sitting on his bed with his head hung low, his
hands laced behind his neck, elbows braced on his knees.

Today had been a shit day, the news of his other brother not
being dead, down one emotional slide and up the other. She didn’t even bother
asking if he was okay. He looked up when he heard her shut the door, trying to
find a smile for her, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. She picked up the skirt of
her dress and climbed as gracefully as she could into his lap, hoping that her
hug offered him some comfort. “I’m not going to drop this kid anytime soon, if
you want to go see your brother, please go.” He shook his head and touched a
string of kisses up her throat, burying his face in her hair to inhale deeply.
He stroked her hips, her hair, then wrapped his arms tight around her. “Till we
know who did Pike and Susan, I’m with you. Raid will understand, and I’ll be
here when he gets home.”

She didn’t argue with him any further, just combed her
fingers through his hair and smiled when his hands moved up and down her back,
pausing to squeeze her ass every now and again. She’d been wondering how long
it would take before his somber mood wore off. “You’re worried about how easy
it was for the feds to find me.” His teeth scraped over her shoulder, “They
followed the trail Pike and Susan left. They were using cash, but the ME tagged
their fingerprints and got their identities. But
Nasa
got the suits to admit they’d seen you leaving the clubhouse with me, that your
ex, saw you and spilled the fuckin beans. So yeah, I’m fuckin worried. But
that’s for tomorrow. Tonight, you love me. Tonight, you’re wearing this dress
and I’m a bastard for looking at you and forgetting for a while why you were
wearing it.”

She gasped and laughed a little when he ducked his head to
touch a kiss between her breasts, her belly getting in the way of him holding
her close like she wanted, “I was worried it would be inappropriate, but it’s
the most conservative black dress I own, that still fits me.” He grunted, his
tongue sliding under the material to swipe up the slope of her breast, nibbling
and kissing it farther over until he’d nosed it over to bare her black bra. “I
love it. Shows off these amazing tits, your belly, your ass. Even under the
circumstances, every time I looked at you, I was fighting a boner. Can’t even
tell that you’ve got panties on.” She huffed, shuddering when his talented
tongue found her nipple and curled around the sensitive tip. “I don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Have panties on. I thought you might need a break after the
funeral, so I took them off when I took off my s-stockings, oh god.”

The second she’d admitted to not wearing panties, his hand
dove between her legs and unerringly found her pussy, his whole palm cupped
her, the heel rubbing hard at her clit. And if he hadn’t had his arm around her
back, she might have flown off his lap as her body arched at the whip of
pleasure that lashed at her.  “Sweetest bitch, ever.” He growled,
forestalling her demand for him not to call her a bitch, with the thrust of his
fingers up inside her. No teasing, no waiting, and over the sound of her ragged
gasps, she could hear the wet sucking sounds of his fingers playing in her
juices. She rocked on his hand, fingers digging into his shoulders to hang on
for the ride, but right when she was about to topple over the edge, he hauled
her up to her feet, dislodging his fingers from inside her and before she could
do more than squeal in denial, he whipped her dress up and tossed it away. Her
bra followed that, and she was totally naked.