Rough & Rowdy (Notorious Devils #1) (12 page)

Involuntarily, my eyes go back to the closed door where Kentlee is showering. She could be next, and that would fucking gut me. Nobody knows that she’s carrying my baby yet, either. Just me being right where I am is dangerous enough, add the fact that she’s got my baby inside of her and I’m spending my nights here—that makes her a target. Plain and simple fact. It wouldn’t take much for someone to watch and figure it out. Figure out that she means somethin’ to me.

“Yeah, it’s time for war,” I grind out.

“What are you gonna do with her?” he asks, lifting his chin, knowing damn well what we do with Old Ladies is put them on lockdown. But Kentlee isn’t my Old Lady, and she’s not going to be, either.

“We’re movin’. I’ll stick with her secretly. I’ll come through the back and leave the same way. The new place will have a garage, so hopefully nobody will notice me coming and going,” I say with a shrug.

Sniper looks at me with disappointment and nods once before he stands and claps my shoulder with his hand.

“Call Torch and Dirty Johnny,” he grunts.

“Church in an hour. Start making calls,” I order. He nods before he leaves.

I sit back on the sofa and wonder if I’m making the right call by not claiming Kentlee.

Am I keeping her safe or putting her in harm’s way by not locking her ass down with the rest of the Old Ladies?

I don’t need the questions about her to surface, so I decide to stick with my plan. She’s mine, but she’s a secret. Makes me feel like shit, but I need her safe. I don’t need the club to touch her and muddy her up. I need her clean, sweet, and waiting for me.

Kentlee

I
used to think that lazy Sunday mornings were heaven.
I was wrong
. Lazy Sunday mornings being wrapped in Pierce’s arms are heaven, with a cherry on top. I couldn’t lie with him another minute longer, though.

I was nauseous and I had found that having a piece of bread with peanut butter slathered on top tamped that nausea right down. So I slid out of bed and made myself one. Once I was finished stuffing my face and drinking a whole glass of milk, another thing I noticed I absolutely adored now that I am pregnant, there was a knock on the door. Bates Lukin graced me with his presence.

I didn't talk to him for long. Pierce ordered me to the bedroom, and the look on his face had me more worried than curious, so I didn't question him.

I think about Bates as I wash my hair. It’s been years since I’ve seen him. So many, in fact, that I hadn’t known he was even back from his duty in the Marines.

Bates Lukin – talk about a blast from the past.

He dated my sister when she was fourteen and he was seventeen. She loved him,
really loved him
. I watched her fall apart the day he left for boot camp, and she was never the same. Something happened between them, something I couldn’t understand, and she’s been changed since.

“Sugar,” Pierce calls into the bathroom as I turn the water off and grab my towel.

“Yeah?” I ask, drying off before stepping out of the shower.

“Gotta go. Got shit to do. You gonna be okay the rest of the day?” he asks, pressing his hand against my lower back, bringing my body closer to his.

“Yeah, I have some houses I’m going to go and look at in a little while, then dinner with my parents,” I shrug as I trace my finger along the black swirl tattoo on his shoulder.

“You got someone you can take with you to those houses?” he murmurs as he tips his head down to watch my finger on his shoulder.

“I can go it alone. The keys are at the office,” I say, tipping my lips in a half smile.

“I don’t want you goin’ alone to a bunch of empty houses, baby girl. Be better if you took one of your bitches with you, at least,” he says.

I take his words into consideration. He’s being protective and I like it
. I love it, actually.

“Yeah, I’ll find someone. Maybe Brentlee will want to come.”

I smile and he leans down to place a sweet kiss on my lips. He doesn’t need to know that I don’t really have any friends. That’s what happens when you’re kind of nerdy in school. Brentlee has a slew of fake friends, but I couldn’t handle that. Not at all.

“Good girl. Now, I gotta go. Call me when you’re done with the family and I’ll come over.” He squeezes my hip before he turns to walk away from me. I stand in the middle of my little bathroom, wrapped in a towel, watching his perfect jean encased ass go. Then I shiver.

Fuck, he’s hot
.

Once Pierce is gone, I call my sister, and it only takes two words—
house hunting—
to get her raring to go. Brentlee likes to shop, she doesn’t care what she’s shopping for. As long as it’s shopping, she’s in her element.

Pierce never did give me a budget, so I found four homes to look at—all rentals, all with a garage, and all with a moderate price. It’s more than I could ever afford on my own, but with him pitching in, I’m fairly certain we can make it work.

“I didn’t know you wanted to move?” Brentlee asks as I give her directions to the first house. I don’t feel the best and talked her into driving.

“I wasn’t, but things change,” I say, trying not to give it away. I won’t be able to last. I never could keep secrets from Brent. She can keep them from me, but I’m an open book.

“Spill it, woman,” she says, grinning as we pull up to the first place.

I take a look at the house and sigh. It’s in a decent neighborhood, not the best, but not the worst. They are fifties style houses, all lined up. If they weren’t different colors, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. The yard is neatly kept by our company’s lawn service, and I wonder if Pierce will be outside pushing a mower when we move.

I bet he’d look spectacular all sweaty and hot doing yard-work.

“Well…” Brentlee says as we walk up the front porch.

I ignore her while I open the house. Once we’ve walked inside, I lock the door and turn to face her.

“I’m pregnant,” I confess. Her mouth drops open as her eyes bug out.

“
Shut.Up
,” she screeches.

“I am,” I say, tearing up.

Then, to my surprise, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me into her body in the first sisterly bit of affection we’ve had in years.

“Kentlee,” she murmurs into my hair, “who is this bastard? Where is he? I’ll kill him,” she cries out.

I take a step back from her and am surprised by her fierce protectiveness. Seems like this pregnancy is bringing out people’s need to take care of me. I’ve been taking care of myself for so long that I’m not used to other people caring about what I’m doing, or what’s happening to me. It feels good, though — It feels nice that Pierce and Brent are both willing to take care of me, in their own way.

“He wants to be with me—wants this and wants us. This house is for us to start a family,” I explain. Brentlee’s eyes widen once more.

“That hot dude that dragged you out of the club?” she asks.

“Fury, yeah,” I admit.

“Kent, that guy is a
Notorious Devil.
You can’t have a relationship with one of them. You can fuck them for a good time, but you can’t actually
be
with them. They’re dangerous,” she says.

I know she’s saying it out of concern and not anything else, but her words still sting. Pierce doesn’t feel dangerous to me. But from the outside looking in, I can see why she would think that.

“We’re going to try, Brent. Maybe he’ll be bad for me, but he cares for me and he wants this,” I say as my voice wavers and tears fill my eyes.

“I just…
he was old
… I don’t understand it at all,” she says, pressing her lips together as she shakes her head.

“He’s thirty-five. Yeah, he’s older than me, but we have something, Brent. I honestly don’t understand what you and Scotty have, but I don’t meddle in your choice when it comes to him,” I confess.

I watch her eyes dull slightly before she shakes her head and the look vanishes.

“He’s safe,” she tells me as we walk into the tiny little kitchen.

It isn’t the best kitchen I’ve ever seen, but it would be doable.

“Because Bates wasn’t?” I ask.

I watch her from the corner of my eye as she bites her bottom lip, something she does when she feels emotion.

“Bates was…
Bates
. No man will replace him. But yeah, he wasn’t safe,” she says, nodding.

I drop it. I want to tell her that I just saw Bates, that he’s back in town, but I don’t. He thinks she’s happy.
She
thinks she’s happy. There is nothing I can say that would change anything at this point.

We stay silent as we finish looking at the first house. It’s not the best, so I hope the rest are better.

Maybe I should have upped the budget I set for myself. This first house is kind of dumpy.

Brentlee and I get in her car to go to the second home. We don’t talk about anything as I give her directions to the home. It’s an uncomfortable silence and I look over to her, knowing she’s thinking about something, practically watching the wheel’s spin in her brain.

It isn’t until we step inside of the second house that she finally speaks.

“Is he your Bates? Is he the one, then?” she asks.

“I think he could be,” I say as I step into the kitchen.

It’s beautiful for a rental. I can’t help but imagine myself behind the stove, with Pierce standing at my back, his hands on my hips and his lips on my neck.

Perfect
.

“I hope he is.
God
, I hope one of us gets to keep the love of our lives,” she says, grinning.

I wrap my arm around her.

“Scotty
is
the love of your life,” I tell her. She scrunches her nose at me.

“Scotty is comfortable; he’s safe, he’s predictable, and we’ll be happy together. I love him, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not the one who makes my stomach clench and my pussy ache. That was always Bates, and always will be. He’s the only man who has ever made me feel that way,” she admits.

Brentlee’s words are telling,
so telling
and so damn
sad
. I want her to have him. I want him to have her. They deserve epic happiness and I wish they could have that, but it doesn’t look as if it is in the cards.

That makes me depressed for them.

“I want you to have it all, Brent,” I say as I step into the backyard of the home.

It’s small and manageable, but big enough that maybe we can put a small play-set in the corner.

“I’ll have it all, Kent. I’m going to be a fancy lawyer’s wife. I’ll be able to stay home with our kids and be the perfect wife and mom. I’m going to have a husband who dotes on and adores me. I’m going to be the
envy
of all my friends. What more could I want?” She sounds so spoiled, so vain—that’s not her.

This
is the Brentlee she shows her girlfriends, the phony party girl.

I don’t care for her.

I like the real Brentlee, but she’s hiding from herself, and hiding herself from the world.

“Okay, baby sister, you’ll have it all. I want you to have everything you want,” I say, wrapping my arm around her tiny waist.

“Mom’s going to flip her shit,” she says on a sigh.

“No joke.”

“This is your place, you know?” she states.

“Yeah. This is it, isn’t it?”

“You’ll be happy here, with your man and your baby.”

We don’t say anything else. There isn’t anything else
to
say. Brentlee is making the life she thinks she wants. She’s nineteen and thinks that she
knows it all
. There’s nothing I can say or do to advise her at this point. I don’t think Scotty is the man for her, but she’s determined to make her relationship and future marriage with him work out. I can only hope that it does, for her sake.

I look out the window and sigh as we drive toward my parents’ house in silence. I’m starting a path I never thought I would be on. I’m going to move in with an outlaw biker—the president of his club, at that.

Nothing is as I had planned.

Plans have a way of never working out, and I am okay with that—so far.

I have a man who wants me, who wants to take care of me, and who wants our baby.

How can I complain about life being not as I planned when life is giving me so damn much right now?

My parents’ house comes into view and I suddenly feel sick to my stomach with nervousness. I am dreading this conversation, but it needs to happen. They need to know what is going on in my life, even if they won’t approve of it.

I just hope that they can be open-minded enough to accept my decisions on the matter. I shouldn’t hold my breath, though. They barely tolerate the fact that I’m unmarried and not relying on a man.

Little do they know that they’re about to get their wish, it just isn’t what they had envisioned.

“Girls,” my mother cries as soon as we open the door.

I want to roll my eyes.

Brentlee lives here at home still, and I just saw my mother last week. Yet, she acts like we haven’t seen her in months
. Drama-Queen.

“Mom,” I mumble as I hang my purse up on the hook by the front door.

“You’re just in time to set the table, Kentlee,” she directs. I do as she says, knowing that if I don’t, she’ll raise hell until I do.