Soul Ties (Club Ties #4) (23 page)

She thanked the receptionist and left the hospital. When she hit the lot, she was running and fishing for her cell at the same time. One of the sweet butts answered the phone at the club. “Ginger, give me Eel. I need to talk to him.”

Eel had driven Connall. He’d know.

“Eel here. Yes, it’s as long as you think it is,” he answered.

“Shut up, Eel. Where’s Connall?”

“What will you give me if I tell you?”

“I’ll tell you what I won’t give you if you do—a hole through your nut-sack. Now fucking tell me where he is.”

“Wow. That’s kinda hot.”

“Eel.” Her warning tone broke through.

“Fine, fine. He’s at home.”

Surprise and happiness bounced off the walls of her chest. “Thanks.” She ended the call and slid into her car. She backed out like a maniac, crowded a sedan out of the way, and shot into the street.

The drive to his house seemed to take forever. After holding five imaginary conversations with him in her head, she pulled into his driveway. The house looked abandoned. The windows shut, the blinds drawn. His bike and truck weren’t sitting out.

She stomped to the front door and beat it with her fist. When she didn’t hear any sound from within, she realized he might be in bed, unable to walk to the door. She tried the handle. Nothing.

But she knew the security code.
Unless he changed it.

She punched the digits and heard the sweet
click
that meant she was in. She pushed into the dim space and closed the door quietly. His house smelled stale, as if it’d been shut up for a while. She walked past the kitchen table where he’d made her come three times and straight to his bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, arms folded, fist to his mouth.

His thinking pose. She’d seen it dozens of times and never would get enough of seeing it. Her girly parts acknowledged just how damn sexy that pose was.

“You might as well come in, Sarah.” He didn’t look at her.

Worry was a sickening knot in her stomach while she entered the space. As she neared, she noted he was wearing gray sweats and one thigh looked thicker, probably from a bandage.

“How’d you know it was me?”

“Because I know the sound of your footsteps. Besides, I didn’t give anyone else the alarm codes.”

She tangled her fingers together and stood several feet from the bed. Feeling out of place, unwelcome. She gulped around the burning in her throat.

When he swung his glance her way, her knees threatened to buckle. All the love inside her rushed to the surface, and she took a hasty step forward.

And stopped.

“You’re fixed up?” She had no idea how she’d managed to speak.

He gave a single nod and ran his long fingers down the gray cotton on his thigh. “Good as new. Benefit of having doctor friends.”

“And what’s your benefit of having biker friends?” She considered herself part of that group. She was a club girl—always would be.

“The club has always come first to me,” he said quietly.

“But I don’t. You didn’t tell me where you were or even if you were okay.”

“You didn’t need to hear that, Sarah.”

“No?” Anger spewed from a deep pit in her stomach—one she hadn’t known existed. All the fury she’d stuffed down for as long as she could remember churned there, a lava about to ooze out and scorch.

She stalked up to him. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel anything for me.”

“Dammit, Sarah, you don’t want me to tell you that.”

She slapped him across the face. His head jerked, but he took the blow. When he met her gaze, he had his mask in place. She shoved his shoulder and he rocked. “I want you to tell me I was a piece of ass to you. A hot cunt to slide into and blow your wad. That I don’t mean a goddamn thing to you, Connall.”

He gave the faintest shake of his head. “I won’t tell you that.”

“Why? Because it’s true? You can’t tell the truth.”

“I already did.”

Puzzled by his words, she moved in for another slap. He caught her wrist, folding his fingers around her bones tenderly. She cried out, but not from his touch—from all the hurt he’d inflicted by withholding from her.

“Who are you? Why can’t you open up to me?”

“I’m a Hell’s Son.”

“Bullshit answer. I know the Sons. They live hard and love harder. Except you.”

“I can’t, Sarah.” His voice rang with defeat.

“No, you won’t. There’s a difference.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Make me understand.” She wrenched her wrist from his grip and shoved him again.

“Dammit, if you lay angry hands on me one more time, I’m going to make you stop.”

Finally—a response. She darted her left hand out, prepared to deliver a slap to his handsome face.

He caught her, threw her down on the bed. When he rolled atop her, her body came alive. Her pussy ached and liquid heat slid downward. Panting, she glared at him.

“I know this is what you want. I can’t give it.”

She tried to fight, but he locked her hands in one of his. “You just took and took from me. I never had a chance of earning your love.”

“Hell…” His gravelly tone was a spark to her system. “Earn it? Sarah, you did more than that. You gave everything you have to me. But I’m no good—”

“You keep saying that! I deserve to know why. Have you killed a man? I have too!”

His face blanked. “Not a man.” He lifted himself off her, leaving her cold and alone in the center of his bed, where she’d gotten so much pleasure before.

Not a man. Not a man.
“You killed a woman?”

He resumed his position on the edge of the bed, his shoulders stiff. “Lorraine.”

At last she was getting what she needed. Even though it would probably slice her deeply, she couldn’t see Connall as a bad man. He was beautiful and tender in all the right ways while his rough exterior was exactly what she needed.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. “You killed Lorraine.”

He exploded to his feet. By looking at him, she’d never know he was even injured. He braced his legs for battle and bore his weight without a wince. “Dammit, Sarah. I don’t want to talk about it.”

She jumped up too. Squeezing into the space between mattress and his body, she looked him in the eyes. “I deserve to hear it. What if I have to tell your child someday what his father did?”

“Jesus, are you…?” His eyes burned, and her insides melted a degree.

“I might be. You filled me with enough swimmers.”

“I…fuck, I’m an idiot.”

“Tell me everything, Connall. Or I’ll get the club to deal with you.”

“You won’t need to.” His voice held a strange note she didn’t understand but shook off in her pursuit of truth.

He walked away from her. The distance between them might have been the Grand Canyon—she couldn’t cross it, and he wouldn’t try.

Several heartbeats passed, and she started to understand. She wasn’t getting what she needed from this man.

“You’re no better than O’Dovey, taking, taking, sapping me.”

His head snapped up. “Is that what you think?”

“Maybe.” She raised her chin and refused to let him look away.

“Like hell.” He rushed her. She flew back on the bed, settled between his hard thighs, and he pinned her thoroughly. She bucked upward, and he grunted as his cock distended the front of his sweats.

“You little hellion, you want to hear how Lorraine was depressed? How she had all the symptoms of mental illness but I ignored them, thinking she just needed time and love and acceptance? How I was an idiot, forgetting all the warning signs I was trained to see? She took her life, and I handed her the pills to do it?”

She went still, trying to understand. “You…gave them to her, knowing she’d take them?”

“No, but it’s like having poison around a child. You put it up so they don’t eat it. But I didn’t. Put. It. Up.” He punched the pillow beside her with every word that dropped. She didn’t flinch. He’d never hurt her.

“Connall, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it fucking was,” he raged. A vein pulsed on his forehead.

“No, you aren’t responsible for her taking her life. She made the decision.”

“I didn’t keep her safe from herself!”

She shook her head, a calm settling over her. He was hurt—fractured. He took the blame inside himself and clung to it. His darkness, he’d called it. But the only dark thing about him was the event he’d lived through.

She ran her fingers along his jaw, and his gaze snapped to hers. “You’re a good man, Connall.”

“You don’t know.”

“I do. I’ve seen you saving the Sons—Bones and Wrench and others. You saved me.”

“I’m trying to, Sarah. Fuck, I’ll stand up and take whatever they give me.”

She went dead still. Understanding washed through her, a monumental icy wave. “You…” she choked, “took the blame?”

His eyes burned as he stared down at her. In that instant, she saw the love she’d longed for all this time. “You know I had to. They were close, and men were going to die in pursuit of justice. They weren’t going to stop looking for him, Sweetheart.”

“No…” Her weak cry barely broke the deadly silence in the room. She shoved against his chest and wiggled out from under him. Then she heard it—the bikes. Not a few bikes but dozens of bikes, all riding for the house, descending on them. They were going to mete out justice to Connall for killing O’Dovey.

Connall flicked his head to the door. “Go, Sarah. Go and don’t look back.”

“I’m not leaving!” She barricaded herself in the corner of the room, hands thrown out, eyes wild.

“It’s not going to be pretty, Sweetheart. Please. I can’t let you see this.”

“I won’t run when the man I love needs me.”

His heart did a wild flop, and for an instant, all the light of the sun blinded him. She was all things good and she’d given her love to him, a man who wasn’t worthy. But oh God, it felt so fucking good. He let his eyes slip closed and basked in her glow.

When he opened them again, it was to the sound of his front door being kicked in. Leather creaked and boots thumped.

“West!” Ace’s voice was thunder.

“Sarah. Get the fuck out.”

“I won’t go.” She stuck out her stubborn little chin and held her ground.

She’d try to protect him by confessing her crime, but he’d make sure the Sons didn’t believe her. Long after he was wiped from the earth, her hands would be clean.

Bikers crowded into the room. A dozen of them. More outside the door. Connall threw a look at Sarah. “Let her leave.”

“No!” She found the baseball bat leaning in the corner and brandished it like a sword. “Anyone who tries to take me out of here gets fucked up.”

If Connall wasn’t so frightened for her, he’d grin. The little spitfire had spirit.
That’s my girl.

He held his arms out in surrender.

“You’ve confessed to killing O’Dovey. And you’ve been sentenced.” This from Jamison. His words were weighted, his face drawn with lines.

Sarah threw herself out of the corner and splayed her arms in front of him. “No, he didn’t do it.”

“Sarah, get out of the way,” Jamison said. Connall was counting on the prez’s affection for her to keep him from buying her story.

“Connall didn’t kill O’Dovey—I did!”

The room was silent for half a beat, then someone snorted. “You can’t protect the doc, Sweetheart.”

“I-it was me. O’Dovey tried to r-rape me, and I had a knife in my boot. I didn’t even think, I just s-stabbed him.” Her words juddered, and Connall leaned an inch closer to her, aching to draw her body against his. Confessing to the brothers, knowing she’d lose her club, was the bravest thing she could do.

His heart swelled. He wrapped his fingers around her upper arm with the bat. “Sweetheart, don’t. I love you too fucking much to see you go down,” he whispered into her ear.

The bat lowered, but when Ace and Drake took a step forward, she whipped it back up.

“His blood’s on my hands. I killed him. Oh God, he bled so much. I didn’t know where to t-turn, and I asked Connall for help.”

He couldn’t meet the gazes of his brothers. If they looked into his eyes, they’d know she was telling the truth.

“Get her out of here,” he said.

A prospect moved forward to take her, and she slammed the bat up between his legs. He dropped like a stone.

“Jesus, Sarah, you’re a ruthless wench, taking a man out by the balls.”

She waved the bat. “I’ll take a shot at every ball in this house if you don’t listen to me. I’ll show you where he’s buried. I’ll show you the spot on my floor where he bled out.”

Jamison eyed her. When he reached out for the bat, she swung it at him. He barely yanked his hand back before she broke it. “Enough, Sarah,” he barked. “Ace, get her out of here. We deal with West. Now.”

She went wild. Swinging, kicking. Lashing out at anyone that came near her. Eel lifted her off her feet, and Connall watched fingerprints raised instantly on her upper arm.

He snapped. He landed a punch to Eel’s throat that threw him back. Once Sarah was free, Connall swept out his arm, knocking her behind him. “You aren’t hurting her.”

Men closed in. Sarah was screaming, and the pain in Connall’s thigh was a sickening cloud, a tunnel closing in around him.

Jamison raised a hand and the room fell still. “Go out in the yard. Guard all the doors. I’m going to have a sit-down with these two and get the truth out of them.”

They filed from the room, one holding his throat and another hobbling while clutching his balls.

Sarah pressed herself against Connall’s back, and he welcomed her presence. Maybe…

But no, this couldn’t end any way but with him in a grave. She wouldn’t be happy without the life she knew, and he was giving it to her.

As soon as the room was empty and they heard the front door close, only five remained in the bedroom. He and Sarah against Jamison, Drake, and Ace.

“Give it to us straight, West,” Ace said.

His leg ached, and he moved to sit on the bed. Concern crossed Sarah’s face, and his heart flexed. As she came to stand next to him, he caught her hand and stroked her knuckles with his thumb.