Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) (28 page)

As they all walked back to the house, Sid noticed Muse’s bike parked on the driveway with Demon’s and Hoosier’s. He was here? Why hadn’t he come out?

When she crossed the threshold into the house, she got something like an answer. Muse grabbed her and pulled her down a short hallway that led to a half bath. He pulled her into the bathroom and closed the door, then pushed her against it. Without any word at all, he leaned his body on hers and kissed her, his hands tangling in her hair and gripping her head.

He felt so good, his passion so overpowering, that Sid didn’t fight it. She barely considered fighting it. When her arms went around his neck, he dropped one hand from her head and pulled her leg up, hooking it around his hip. Then he reached between them and opened his jeans. Jesus—he was going to fuck her right here, with Hoosier and Bibi and Demon and Tucker in the kitchen eating cupcakes.

The thought made her throb.

He yanked her panties out of his way and pushed inside her; he still hadn’t said a word. But then, neither had she.

On his second thrust she cried out and bit it off midway. One his third thrust, he groaned, “Take my ink.”

That pulled her out of her sensual haze. “What?”

He thrust and groaned again. “Take my ink.” Then it became a chant in time with his thrusts: “Take it…fuck, Sid…take it…Take my ink!”

“I don’t know what that means!” And fuck, she did not want to be having a conversation right now.

He stopped, and they stared at each other. She could see it dawning on him that he was asking her to do something she didn’t understand. When he got it, he thrust again. They were making all kinds of noise against the door, but she was trying like anything to keep her mouth shut. She closed her eyes and concentrated on his cock throbbing inside her, and on not screaming.

“I love you.” Again, he spoke on the beat of his flexing hips.

At that she opened her eyes. “I love you, too.”

“Come on me.”

That, she understood. That, she could do. And when he pushed his hand between them, found her clit, and began pinching and rubbing, she did. He covered her mouth with his, taking her moans and cries, and fucked her until she was dizzy, the door against her back creaking and thumping to their rhythm.

When they were done, he settled her back on her feet and handed her some tissues. As they cleaned up, he said, “I want to mark you—put ink on you, a tattoo, that says you’re mine. That’s what I meant.”

She stopped in the process of straightening her underwear and stared up at him. “You want to brand me?”

“No. I want to commit to you.”

Despite the way that declaration made Sid’s heartbeat skip, she said, “Sounds like it’s me committing to you. You’re not getting ink.”

“I will, if you want that. Sid—what I’m saying…it’s bigger than a ring. We don’t put ink on women lightly. I’m in. I’m all in here.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she said something else. “I got written up at work. If I want to keep my job, I’m supposed to stop seeing you.”

He’d been washing his hands. He went rigid, still leaning over the sink with the tap running. “What?”

“I’m obviously not going to do that. I’m quitting. I needed to make sure Tucker got placed first, but now, once the papers are in order, I’m quitting. Walking out. I have no idea what to do next, but I can’t stay there. The job was killing me even without the jerk boss with a bug up his ass about the Horde.”

Muse turned off the water and dried his hands. “He’s gunning for us?”

“I guess. He’s fixated on my connection with the club and has a blind spot about Demon because he wears a kutte. I don’t know why. And he knew about us, which creeps me out.”

“I’ll ask Sherlock to look into it. Maybe it’s leverage to keep your job.”

But Sid shook her head. “I don’t want it. I don’t know what else I can do, but I can’t do that. I thought I was strong enough, but I’m not. It’s seeing the very worst of people every single day. I’m not that strong. Or that brave. I’m afraid all the time. Every time I knock on somebody’s door, I don’t know what will be there when it opens. I wanted to make a difference, but…no. I just can’t. Not like that.”

“You are strong. You’re amazing. What you did for Demon and Tucker? What you did for me when Carrie passed?” He took her hands in his. “Take my ink, Sid. Be mine. I’ll take care of you.”

Maybe that declarative should have made her feel good. Maybe it would have made another woman feel good. But it made Sid feel anxious. “I don’t want that. I want to take care of each other. I don’t want to be your property, Muse. I want what we have to be
ours
, not yours.”

“Don’t get bogged down in the words, hon. I want to be ours, too. I’ll wear your ink, if that’s what you want. I’ll wear your name with pride, where everyone can see.”

“I feel like you’re proposing to me.”

“It’s not much different. I’d do that, too, if you wanted.”

“Don’t you think we’re moving too fast?” Not quite eight weeks, they’d known each other.

“Fast, yeah. Too fast? I don’t know. Maybe feeling is better than thinking for this. I know how I feel. I don’t much care why I feel it. I just know I don’t want to lose it.” He bent down and kissed her lightly, moving his lips back and forth over hers, his beard tickling in a way that made her want to open his jeans again. “Take my ink, hon. I’ll take yours.”

Finding herself without a ready argument to the contrary, and feeling a happy peace in the image of what he wanted, she said, “Okay. We can do it together, right?”

He grinned and leaned in for another kiss. “Absolutely.”

~oOo~

That evening, Sid pulled her Thing into her driveway, feeling exhilarated and terrified. It had been a huge day. She’d gotten Tucker and Demon back together, at least as a start, and she’d quit her job, slamming a two-sentence resignation letter on Harry’s desk, after filing a complaint with Allison about his conduct. She’d sauntered out of the office feeling powerful and victorious, even though she didn’t have a job and had no idea what else she could do.

And she thought she’d kind of gotten engaged—the biker version of it, anyway.

Definitely a big day. Muse had said he wouldn’t be too late, so Sid had stopped at the grocery and picked up some champagne and strawberries. She had no idea if Muse would drink it with her, but she felt champagne-y tonight.

Dinny had gotten trapped at a light or something and still hadn’t caught up with her, so she hooked her purse and briefcase on her shoulder, stacked the grocery bag on top of her box of desk stuff from her ex-job and muscled it all up to the front door by herself.

Leaning the box on the stucco wall, she unlocked the door. A vague feeling of disquiet stole over her, and she looked around. Everything was calm, though. Her neighborhood looked like it always looked. Shrugging off that weird feeling, she let herself into her house and set the box down against the turret wall and put her purse and briefcase on top of it.

She kicked off her pumps, then took her short, red trench coat off and draped it over the seat of the chair she kept for people to sit and take off their shoes. Then she picked up the canvas grocery bag and headed toward the kitchen.

About halfway there, about half a second before she saw the thing that would bring the point home with a vengeance, it dawned on Sid what was wrong. Cliff. No Cliff. And Muse had his Knuckle, so he hadn’t taken the dog to the clubhouse. He did that every now and then, but when he did, he drove his pickup.

Just as she had that thought, she’d gotten close enough to the kitchen doorway to see the back door and the floor leading to it. Cliff was lying on the floor, his back to her. Not moving.

“Cliff? Buddy?”

He didn’t move. A pane was broken out of the back door. There was glass all over the floor.

Before her awareness of trouble could become full understanding, a huge hand went around her throat and yanked her backward, gripping too tightly for her to scream. She felt a heavy ring digging into the tender skin under her chin.

“I told you I’d make you pay, you cunt.” If Sid hadn’t already known who had her, the voice gritted in her ear would have done it. Kevin Green. Was in her house.

“They took my kids away for good last week. Did you know that? He tightened his grip around her throat. He had her back against his front. He was a huge man, well over six feet, and really wide—she knew from their previous encounter that his was the kind of build that looked fat and out of shape but was actually powerfully strong. He had one arm locked now across her chest and the other hand at her throat—painfully tight, not quite so much that she couldn’t breathe, but tight enough for the threat of it.

Worse than any of it, he was erect. It was digging into her back.

He shook her. “Did you know?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “I know.”

“
You
did that, you cunt.”

How had he gotten in here? How had he found her? Where was Dinny? She tried to think, she tried not to panic. But then his arm around her chest moved, and he tore open the buttons on her shirt.

“I wonder what you got that I can take,” he snarled.

No. One time in her life was enough. No, no, no. Pulling all of the things she knew, all the things she taught in self-defense class up to the fore, she let the adrenaline have her. Whether it was panic or rage or determination, she didn’t care. She discarded all the advice about giving in to avoid being hurt, and she kept all the knowledge of fighting she had.

She stomped his foot—but he was wearing boots, and she was barefoot.

She threw her head back—but he was much taller than she was, and she landed on his breast bone. It made him grunt, but hurt her more than him.

He had her arms locked at her sides, so she couldn’t throw an elbow.

He was just too goddamn big for anything she knew. All those stupid moves were stupid. Useless. He had her. And he knew it.

Laughing, he let her try. And he jerked her bra up and grabbed a breast, pinching savagely. “I like a fighter. Keep it up. I’ll give it all back to you.”

When his hand left her breast, pulling so hard she thought he might take her nipple clean off, and moved between her legs, she screamed. She didn’t have much air to work with, but she screamed as loud as she could, and he let go of her neck to cover her mouth. Before he could get a good grip, she bit his palm, tearing skin, taking a hunk out of his hand, rejoicing and retching at the same time when her mouth filled with his blood.

“AGH! You BITCH!”

As she spat out the hunk she’d taken, he backhanded her in the temple with that fucking ring. She spun and hit the floor, cracking her head on a small table and bringing it to the floor with her. She lay there, the world gray and dull, and knew in a far off place in her head that he was opening his jeans and telling her she was going to pay double for all of it.

She couldn’t get clear. She knew she needed to think, to fight, but her mind and her body and been knocked apart somehow by the blows to her head, and what muddled thoughts she could make wouldn’t travel to her limbs and let her move. She lay there while he pushed up her skirt and grabbed at her. She could feel his stupid, thick, dirty hands clawing at her, grabbing the crotch of her panties and yanking them down her legs. She could feel blood from his wounded hand smearing on her skin.

“That’s it, you stupid whore. Just lay there like the whore you are. I’m gonna give it to you good before I rip your goddamn head off.”

She turned her head, not wanting to see. Seeing was making her head more chaotic, and she needed to try to make sense.