Shattered & Scarred: The Sacred Hearts MC (8 page)

Please God, let him be spared.

Much later on we were inside Ethan’s room at the club house.

“Why did you kiss me?” I asked suddenly. We were trying to sort through the pile of things I had grabbed.

Ethan looked up sharply from a photo of my mother and me, silver eyes startled.

“Because you’re beautiful, because you’re amazing and because I wanted to.” He said, searching my face.

“Oh.” I said softly.

“Are you upset that I did?” he asked me. I thought about it for a moment.

“No. I’m just… I… Are you..?” I sighed frustrated.

“Babe, take a deep breath.” He said, placing a hand on my knee. He’d taken off of work for me, said he hadn’t had any clients today anyways which was a lie, I’d heard him cancel his one appointment for today when he’d thought I hadn’t been near.

“Are you afraid this changes things?” he asked. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see his face…

“Yes.” I opened them changing my mind and found he was smiling.

“I’m still here.” He said, taking my hand, “I’m still me and you’re still you.” He added and sighed. He shoved everything ingloriously off the bed into a pile at the foot of it and stretched out.

“Come here.” He said.

I crawled up the bed and sat beside him. He patted his chest and I lay down, snug against his side cheek resting on the flannel of his shirt.

“I like holding you like this.” He said, truth was I liked it too, “I’m going to miss it when you’ve got your own room.” He said, I nodded against him and closed my eyes breathing deeply his smell. He smelled like antiseptic from the tattoo shop and working machine parts from his motorcycle, he also smelled of fresh clean air and faintly of cigarettes. He smelled like he lived and I could appreciate that after years of overpowering aftershave and sterile lifeless suburban living.

“You did good Sunshine. I’m proud of you.” He said quietly and my heart swelled from the praise.

“Only because you were there to hold me up.” I whispered.

“Naw, you could’ve done it on your own. You were fan-fucking-tastic today.” I sat up and looked down into his face.

“Only because you were there to hold me up.” I reiterated and I took a deep breath and I kissed him.

His lips moved slowly, sweetly over my own and I closed my eyes. I pulled back gently and whispered “Thank you,” and laid back down. His arm around my back tightened holding me to him, his fingers on the hand opposite stroked my hair back from my face. He sighed and relaxed into the mattress.

“You’re welcome.” He said and we stayed like that, warm and comfortable until both
of us fell asleep, though mine was uneasy, plagued by Chadwick’s threat.

Trig…

I woke up and she was gone again. How she managed to move around the room and
not
wake me up was a fucking gift from the gods. I sat up and sure enough, the room was immaculate. I was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. We’d fallen asleep and I think had stayed asleep. It’d been a long time since I felt so well rested. I went out into the hall and heard music, well, singing…

Loud and clear it came from the common room. I padded it sock covered feet down the hall and found Dragon and
Reaver standing in the common room looking into the kitchen.

“What’s up guys?”
I asked and Reaver put a finger to his lips in the classic sign for shush and waved me over to stand with them. I stood by Dragon and felt a slow smile overtake my lips. I’d never heard anything but hushed tones and faint whispers come out of my Sunshine girl, but there she was, standing at the stove, voice loud and clear as a bell singing her little heart out.

“
I dreamed a dream in time gone by, when hope was high and life worth living! I dreamed that love would never die! I dreamed that God would be forgiving… Then I was young and unafraid and dreams were made and used and wasted! There was no ransom to be paid! No song unsung, no wine untasted!”

Her voice was high and clear and perfect but the song was incredibly sad… We stood there dumbfounded and continued to listen as she sang and cooked at the stove. Her voice dropped and
deepened…
“But the tigers come at night… With their voices soft as thunder! As they tear your hope apart… As they turn your dream to sha-aaa-ame!”
she poured everything she had into the song and it was both beautiful and heart breaking at the same time.
“He slept a summer by my side, he filled my days with endless wonder, he took my childhood in his stride but he was gone when autumn came… And still I dream he'll come to me. That we will live the years together! But there are dreams that cannot be! And there are storms we cannot weather!”

“Bull
shit.” I caught myself muttering and Reaver elbowed me in the ribs.

“Quiet man I want her to finish.” Dragon whispered harshly and I bit back a laugh.

“I had a dream my life would be… so different from this hell I'm living! So different now from what it seemed… Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…”
Her voice softened and broke elegantly at the end and I swear to Christ a tear sprang to my eye. Reaver sniffed and I looked over at him incredulously but that was when Ashton decided to turn around and saw all of us standing there like the eavesdropping idiots we were.

She started hard and dropped her spatula with a clatter letting out a little shriek. Dragon and
Reaver fell out laughing and I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle with them. She pulled her headphones out of her ears which were hidden beneath her hair and smiled, blushing a furious shade of pink.

The two men started clapping and whistling and I went over to her.
She was breathing hard from her fright and I pulled her into a hug.

“You got a set of pipes kid.” Dragon commented.

“Thank you.” Came her embarrassed reply, her face buried in my chest. I laughed.

“Sorry we scared you.” I said.

“It’s okay, sorry if I was being disruptive…”

She was met with a round of “No…”, “
Naw!” and “Not at all.” From the three of us.

“Sing any time you like.” Dragon said, “Anyone gives you trouble you send ‘
em to see me.” He took a seat at the bar, Reaver joined him and I reluctantly let her go, bending and retrieving her spatula for her. She washed it quickly at the sink.

“What was that anyways?” I asked.

“I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables.” She smiled and held up the pot, “Coffee?” she asked and was met by three caveman grunts in the affirmative.

“You know its nice pee wee, but you don’t have to serve us.”
Reaver said as she poured.

“Oh it’s okay… I like to…” she put her headphones in and turned back to the
kitchen. When she started singing again, softer this time, we traded looks.

“How bad did I bone that last run?” I asked Dragon quietly.

“You didn’t. My boy pulled it out.” Dragon answered.

“Yeah, worth it.” I said.

“Yeah, I don’t disagree.” The older man said.

“Was tha
t the last one?” Reaver asked.

“For now,
we got one more.” He grunted, “Then it’s time to cool it. We do any more they’re going to catch on and then this’ll turn into a real clusterfuck. Leastways now that we got people to worry about.” Dragon nodded in Ashton’s direction and I couldn’t help but smile.

We weren’t your typical MC, at least not anymore. Once upon a time we’d done it all, running drugs, money, guns… you name it. The turnaround came about
five years ago after Dragon’s Old Lady, Dray’s mom, got killed. A rival gang had shot up the old club house. She and two members had gone down in the fire fight.

I was still just a prospect, fresh out of the military and off deployment looking for a home, trying to tame some demons of my own. After Dragon lost Tilly he decided to go legit, saying if he’d done it sooner than maybe she’d still be alive. We’d gone from
an outlaw club to legit inside two years.

Then last year we decided we could maybe do more and the pendulum swung the opposite direction. We went from illegal, to legit, to vigilante.  The key of smack that I had failed to deliver, I had failed to deliver to the rendezvous point where we destroy those kinds of thing
s. We had a strict rule about not bringing that shit near our house and I’d broken it bringing Ashton here.

Never was I so grateful to be a member in good standing with the rest of these guys. Because of the circumstances I had not only managed to save her but my own ass from a serious beat down for breaking the rules. The votes hadn’t even been slim. Dray was the only one to vote in favor of kicking my ass. He
was a hardcore stickler for the rules, which wasn’t a bad thing, it’s just not everything was so black and white.

Dray was pissed off at the fucking world, quick to anger and quicker to violence since his mom had died
. Dragon kept him in line but just barely. He still had hope for his kid and the rest of us humored him but Dray just wasn’t cut from the same cloth. He was fiery and hot headed and hadn’t embraced the atonement the rest of us were trying to make for our past sins. He held a big fucking grudge that we hadn’t gone after the men that had got his mom right away. We’d done it but he’d wanted his retribution fast and bloody.

Ashton set plates of French toast, bacon and eggs in front of
Reaver and I and I smiled. She was going to make us too fat and bloated to ride with all these carbs…

“Feel like hitting the weights after this brother?”
Reaver asked.

“Read my fucking mind.” I said, shoveling a fork full of eggs into my mouth. She set a plate in front of Dragon.

“Over easy. Thanks darlin’.” He grinned and dug in.

“That’s disgusting.” I commented as yolk oozed like snot across his plate.

“Shut it, you ain’t eating it.” he said.

“Yeah and I never will.” Ashton’s laugh was a bolt out of a clear blue
sky and all three of us froze.

“What?” she asked.

“First time we’ve heard you laugh.” Reaver supplied.

“Looks good on you S
unshine.” I said and she smiled and it lit her up like her namesake.

“Why can’t I be you?”
Reaver asked.

“Because there’s only one of me why?” I asked.

“Because only you go out on a run and come home with a hot chick that you just found on the side of the road.” He complained.

Dragon laughed and I ate my breakfast. Ashton
moved through the kitchen blushing and I smiled.

Yeah, only me.

Hours later I stripped off gloves, stood and stretched. I peeked out front and found Ashton engrossed in adding up receipts. She needed a job and just so happened I needed a counter man. It was a pain in the ass training her from scratch but at the same time that was a blessing too. This way I got someone guaranteed to do it my way.

The boys got back from the show today and were a bit dumb founded at first but I called a shop meeting and explained what was up. Everyone agreed Chris had been here way passed his expiration date and it didn’t hurt that Ashton was easy on the eyes. They gave her a month to see if she could learn the point of sale system but
she exceeded even my expectations and had it figured out in like two hours.

Of course what did I expect when she’d spent the last ten years of her life with a perfectionist prick who was quick to whoop her ass if she got it wrong? She was damaged but amazingly, not beyond repair.

She sat quietly at the desk and greeted customers softly and warmly. She booked appointments for five of us and cleaned the shop to within an inch of its life. So what if we caught her staring at this piece of art or that for long minutes? She got shit done a hell of a lot faster than Chris’ lazy ass ever had.

“What are you thinking?” she asked and I snapped out of my reverie.

“Thinking about you.” I said honestly and laughed.

“Oh.” She looked worried.

“You’re doing awesome. Better than expected.” I smiled and she glowed from the small praise.

“Are you sure you want to live with me?” she asked.

“Never been more sure of anything in my life, why?” I asked.

“Insecure I guess.” She gave me a weak smile.

“Don’t be.” I said then switched subjects, “When’s my next appointment?”

“Not for another hour.” She didn’t even look at the date book but she knew.

“In that case can I take you to lunch?” I asked. She smiled.

“Okay.”

We went next door to a sandwich shop. Once seated in a back booth she relaxed some.

“Excited?” I asked. It was move day for the both of us tomorrow.

“Yes,” and I could see that she was. A full week out and her bruises on her face had faded to a muddy yellow and green. Barely there. Few more days and she’d be flawless. The rest of her was still pretty thrashed, I could see the dark wine colors on her lower back when she bent to file something and her shirt rode up.

“You’re quiet.” I observed.

“A lot has been happening in a very short amount of time.” She said.

“Yeah.” I agreed, then asked, “How you holding up?”

“Okay I guess. Still scared… jumpy.” She chewed her lower lip and I pulled it free of her teeth with the pad of my thumb reflexively. What she did shot a speedball of desire straight into my veins. She kissed it, my thumb, and leaned her cheek into my curled fingers. She watched me while she did and I swallowed hard. I surreptitiously adjusted myself in my pants beneath the table. She drew back from my hand and I pulled it back over to my side of the table. The moment, delicate as a soap bubble floating in the air, snapped, but the memory of it remained, hanging in the air between us.

“I’m
sor…” she started but I put a stop to it quick.

“Don’t apologize Ashton.” I searched her face and tried to show her what she looked like to me, through my eyes.

“Never apologize.” I whispered.

“Okay.” She said and we both went back to eating, the silence heavy between us.

I don’t think she knew any better than I did what we were doing. Both of us were just playing it by ear. I wanted to do right by her, I really did, but I honestly didn’t know how long my self-control would last. Not when she did shit like that. I just didn’t want to push her, or worse, take the place of her douchebag ex. I looked at her delicate hands and realized she’d stopped wearing her wedding set. When had that happened? I guess it didn’t really matter.

We went back to the shop and I worked late. I had Chandra come and give her a lift back to the clubhouse for our last night spent there.

I was going to miss her body pressed against mine in the night.

I really was.

Fuck me man! I had it bad…

The next day
, a group of us guys were at the new place.

“You sure you want to do this man?” Derek asked for the third time since that morning. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my arm. We were getting the last of my furniture from storage and moving it up to the third floor apartment.

“For the last fucking time man I’m sure.” I said.

“Okay bro, it’s your funeral if the bitch turns out to be crazy and stabs you in your sleep.” I scowled at him.

If anyone was
gonna get stabbed in their sleep it was going to be Ashton. I had woken in the middle of the night with her tight little ass pressed to my cock as I’d spooned her. It had taken everything I had not to move her leg just so, her panties aside and…

“Hey Trigger
! What’re you thinking about so hard over there?” Reaver looked over at me and I was jolted back into action. He laughed at me and turned to Derek, an old Marine Corps buddy of mine.