Where Souls Spoil (70 page)

“I won’t make you a widow,” he says with pain in his eyes. He gives me a slight shake of his head as his hands come up to cup my face. “The shit I told you about Mancuso—that a business deal went bad—it was bullshit. The closest thing I ever had to a father died a few months ago. He was shot in the chest by one of Mancuso’s guys. There is a very real possibility that more of us will die before this is over. I won’t promise you forever when I can’t even guarantee you a year.”

“Why is this happening?” I ask, barely able to control the shake in my voice. I should have known there was more to it when that guy showed up at the school, and I should have run for the hills when he so politely left me and Mindy on a seawall. If I was smart, I would have kept my distance. But I’m not smart and I signed up for this—with him—no matter what it brings. I can’t run away now no matter how much it’s scaring me because the only thing scarier than staying amid the chaos is to leave and wade through the broken pieces of my soul.

“Because a man stole a woman’s children and thought he would never answer for that.”

“You make no sense,” I say quietly. Club business is something I’ve avoided, and honestly, would rather to keep avoiding. But his talking right now is important. He’s giving me a piece of himself that doesn’t fully belong to him—it belongs to all of them—and I’m going to be strong enough to help him shoulder the burden of his secrets.

“Mancuso’s guy takes Chey, what do you do?” he asks. His face is down-turned and his expression so solemn that it’s almost painful to look at him. He’s imagining losing his daughter to that psychopath in the expensive suit. I want to tell him not to worry, but I can’t. The guy proved that he can get to her and he can get to me. He can get to anybody, I think. None of us are truly safe and if Grady can stay on his game by feeling every ounce of that fear, then his pain has some use.

I’ve known her less than a year, and on a personal level even less than that, but the thought of losing her churns my stomach. She’s funny and smart and the very best of Grady with hints of a woman I’ve never met, but who doesn’t deserve Cheyenne because she’s not here and she doesn’t get to see how awesome her daughter really is. And I kind of hate her for creating that void in Cheyenne’s life.

“He takes Chey, Sweets. What do you do—if I’m not here, what do you do?”

The words come out instantly and without any thought. I’m not sure where they come from. I only know that when I say them, I mean them with every fiber of my being.

“He dies.”

“He dies,” he says with a nod. “How?”

“Any way possible. You won’t lose her. I promise.”

He finishes undressing himself and leans over me. I arch backwards and lay myself gently on the floor as he cradles the back of my head. His lips descend on mine with such passion that I think I might explode from the kiss alone. But then his hands get to work and he brings me back to that place where I’m hanging between being here and being lost in a sea of feeling. I fight the urge to let it overtake me. I want to be here, in the present as I say this.

“Marry me,” I say. It’s not much of a request because I won’t take no for an answer.

“Told you,” he says as he slides into me, igniting delicious sparks of need. A loud groan escapes him as he buries himself to the hilt. “I won’t do that to you.”

“You’ll give me this,” I say in a breathless whisper. “I need this from you—the security—and you’ll give it to me because you know you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” he says as he slides out and then back in with a slow, shallow thrust before rearing back and this time impaling me with all his might. My back arches and my legs twitch with the force of him.

“You are,” I say as my jaw shakes and I break out into shivers. We move together slowly, neither of us with any desire to rush this. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”

“You can’t know that,” he says in broken words. He blows out a deep breath and pulls in a shaky one. I lean up and nip at the corner of his mouth. We’re nose to nose with his strong arms supporting my new position. The friction is incredible like this and I wonder why we’d never tried it before. “Chief died.”

“You’re going to marry me and when everything calms down, I’m going to give you a son.”

“You’ll change your mind,” he says as he picks up the pace. His jaw tenses as he gets closer to the edge. I don’t know where the word-vomit came from, but in this moment I want him to know everything about me. I want him to have every hope and dream because he’s clearly worried about what’s going on with the club. I’m not stupid enough to try to dissuade his fears.

“No.” I whimper. “You’re scared.”

“I love you,” he says as he bites his lip to fight back his impending orgasm. He stills and takes a deep breath then moves slowly in and out, in and out. I fall apart around him and a moment later, he loses himself in me as well. I manage to mumble out a pathetic “I love you” as I’m coming down. We lay there like that, connected, for a while. Eventually, he places a kiss to my forehead and says, “You ambushed me with that shit.”

“You’re still going to marry me,” I say as I drag my hands up and down his back.

“Yeah, Sweets,” he says as he kisses me. A drop of sweat falls onto my hairline near my ear. His voice is pained when he says, “I am.”

Chapter 25

“WHY DIDN’T YOU
tell me Jeremy’s prospecting for the club?” I ask. We’ve untangled ourselves from one another and we’re dressing. I fix the last of the buttons on my shirt and turn back to Grady who’s shoving his feet into his black motorcycle boots. Aside from the cuts, the boots are the closest thing the club has to a uniform. They all wear them and it’s obvious they’re not a special occasion shoe. Lisa made a joke last week that Grady’s laundry is now my responsibility. I hate to break it to her, but Grady’s laundry is Grady’s responsibility. I don’t care how many other women he has wrapped around his devilishly long, flexible fingers, I’m not doing the man’s laundry. It goes against everything I believe in.

“Would you have understood?” he asks. “I tell you before I got you hooked that I got a teenager prospecting for my club—how’s that go over?”

Here it is—another indication that he’s scared to tell me things. I want to set the record straight for him—for us—that I’m here and nothing he tells me can make me go away. Pulling a hair tie out of my jeans pocket, I lift my hair into a messy bun on top of my head and secure it as tightly as possible. I close the distance between us and place my hands on his chest. He turns his chin down toward me and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me flush against him.

“It doesn’t matter if I like it or not. You can’t hide things from me. You can’t only tell me what you think I can handle. Give me a little bit of credit here, will you? You think I’m stupid enough to believe that you earn a living changing oil and fixing flats? Please, this is my home. I know what the club does, and I know you’re part of every bit of it.”

He turns his face away and stares at the wall over my shoulder. His jaw ticks, and his touch loses that loving softness it had just a moment ago. He lets his arms drop to his sides. He’s noticeably unhappy about my response, but I don’t know why.

“Go ahead,” he says. Looking my way, his face is hard. He’s shutting down emotionally. “Tell me what you think of the club. Tell me we’re criminals, that we’re bastards. Tell me how it feels to fuck an asshole like me. Tell me you like slumming it.”

“Oh, stick a sock in it,” I say in frustration. My face heats, and I tense up all over. I can feel my temper about to rear its ugly head. “You want to know why I didn’t want the money? Because I’ve spent my entire life cutting corners and doing things the easy way.” My voice is louder than I intend for it to be. I’m basically screaming in his face now, but still, he doesn’t react. “My parents don’t approve, neither do Uncle Harry and Aunt Claire. Hell, even when Mindy had a fucking needle in her arm she worried about me making poor choices.”

“So I’m just another one of your poor choices, huh?” He leans in with cold eyes and warm breath. His words leave his tongue on a hiss as he says, “That’s what this is, isn’t it, Sweets? You like to rebel. You want to pretend to be wild for a while. You talk about marrying me and having my baby, but you’re going to get over this phase and you’ll want to go back to your cookie cutter life.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I grit out.

“But you did,” he says. He cradles my neck in his hand and with a hard grip, he forces me to give him my full attention. I pull away, but his grip only tightens as he jerks my face closer to his. My neck throbs, making me wince. His eyes flick, registering that he’s causing me pain. He’s going to lighten up, I think. But he doesn’t. “You think you know who I am, but if I told you the things I’ve done, you wouldn’t want me, and I can’t blame you for that.”

“Is that what you really think?” I whisper. “That I won’t love you if I know who you really are?”

“Yes,” he says. His chest heaves, and his eyes are so focused and steady. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was losing control. But I do know better. He’s never more in control than when he’s being mean. It’s like he’s in his element or something. I think of all the ways I can explain to him that he’s getting mad for no reason, but the irrational part of my brain that controls my mouth takes over and instead of telling him what’s in my heart, I snap.

“You’re an asshole,” I shout in his face. His grip on the back of my neck tightens in a painful vice. Tears pool in my eyes and I blow out a shaky breath, telling myself to suck it the fuck up.
I will not cry
. “But newsflash—I love you for and despite that fact.”

“You’re too good.” He lets go of me with such determination that I stumble backward and nearly fall on my ass. Everything has shifted between us. Just a few minutes ago, we were lost in one another and now we’re staring each other down and mad as hell about it.

“You should go,” he says. “And drop the marriage shit. I just want to enjoy you before you leave me, but if you keep it up, one day I’m going to say yes and that’s going to make shit real complicated when it’s time for you to bail.”

Everything I’ve done to help him and help his club comes rearing into the front of my mind. Everything moment I spent in that office with Mr. Beck today, where I blackmailed and threatened him. Every goddamn lie I told to the teller, spreading this disease of bullshit all in order to help a kid who I thought needed to feed his family. It’s so clear now, in hindsight. I should have seen it sooner, but I was just so focused on helping Grady. Incredible panic settles into my chest and drops to my gut. My belly aches from my growing nerves and my jaw shakes though I refuse to let a single tear fall. If I don’t figure out a way to make us better, I’m going to cave in on myself and then be done for.

Rushing at him, I slap furiously at his chest. I’m barely aware that I’ve done it until I’m already on him. He doesn’t move to stop me or to shield himself, not that I’m strong enough to actually hurt him. I grab at his cut and pull myself up against him. Yanking on the worn leather in jerky motions, I tip-toe as close to his face as I can get. Still, he doesn’t move.

“I got Jeremy’s permit for him,” I say with a shaky voice, still clawing at the leather. Grady’s eyes bore into mine curiously. “Mr. Beck didn’t want to, but I made him. You think I’m so good and so normal? I blackmailed a man today— could ruin his career. And it’s so fucking easy. Justifying what I’ve done. It’s like this switch I just turned off.”

“What the fuck are you even talking about?” he barks out. Finally, he moves. His hands squeeze at my upper arms so hard that my skin heats from the pressure. My pulse races. If I stop panting so hard, I’d be able to actually hear the beating in my ears.

“It’s always been like this. I just do things that aren’t exactly right but they’re not entirely wrong either. I don’t know!” I’m shouting now. “I just needed to help!”

“You got any fucking clue what kind of charges that shit brings?”

“Does it matter?” I ask. “It’s on me, not you.” Mr. Beck won’t say anything. He has too much to lose and no proof, or so little, that he would be taking a huge risk to even mention what I did to someone else. I made sure of it. If he talks, it’s going to end him. Grady must see that. He has to. We’re safe, and Jeremy’s safe now. It was the right thing to do.

“Holy shit,” he says quietly. His eyes are full of disbelief, narrowing slightly and then relaxing. His jaw is slack, lifting just enough to make an effort to speak, but he doesn’t make a sound. He appears to be slipping into some kind of circular thought process that’s rendered him speechless. “You did that for us?”

“You don’t get to be the only one who puts their ass on the line here,” I whisper.

“Seven,” he says. His eyes divert from mine, but otherwise he’s still. I’m not sure what seven means, but it’s important for a reason I don’t think I’m going to like. If I’m going to live in this world with him, I’m going to have to hear it.

“Yeah?”

“Men. Seven men,” he says. I think I stop breathing with the next words out of his mouth. They’re quiet, but it’s all so foggy. “The first wasn’t the hardest. He shot at me first, so I just shot back. The second pulled a knife on me, got a few slices in before I took him out. With my bare hands. It’s how I earned the nickname Bloody Knuckles. I remember every single one of the men I killed. Two were during a bar fight with another club, and one was a junkie who Layla had hooked up with. He’d beaten her for taking more of his blow than she was supposed to. He broke her arm. The others are inconsequential. Now, how do you like my world? How do you like me? Is
this
the man you want fucking you every night? Is this how you want to live?”

Now I’m the one who’s speechless. I can barely process what he’s said, let alone let it sink in. This man who plays Monopoly with his daughter and takes her out for pizza even though she ignores him half the time is a killer. The first place my brain goes is to sorting out what to make of the information he’s given me on each kill. They sound like they were done in defense and out of protection, but what do I know? I think I can justify anything, because I’m not running. How else do I explain the fact that I’m not afraid?

“You should run,” he whispers, but he doesn’t let me go.

“No.”

“I’m going to end up destroying you. I learned that shit with Layla. She fucked up, I fucked up. It got ugly. I don’t want that for you.”

“Destroy me,” I say with the saddest, most faint smile. “Just don’t leave me. Love me even when I do stupid stuff. Please.”

His lips crash down on mine and he hoists me up into his arms. With every passing moment that he lovingly assaults my senses, the more secure I feel. Our frantic kisses fade into soft pecks with each of us whispering that we love the other. It makes no sense, not that it has to. Love never does.

There’s a knock on the door, surprising me. I pull away, despite his urges to ignore it. The rapping gets louder and louder until I hear Tall’s voice from the other side. “Sarge,” he shouts.

With me still hoisted in Grady’s arms, he walks to the door, unlocks and then opens it. Tall scratches the back of his neck and looks down the hall. His voice is rough when he says, “You told me not to leave without telling you first, but I have to pick Mindy up at work.”

“Mindy doesn’t work today,” I say in confusion. Grady kneads his hands into my ass, which gives me ideas about slamming the door in Tall’s face and getting busy with my Old Man again.

I like the sound of that—my Old Man.

“No ma’am, but she’s covering for Nic.” I feel kind of crappy about how wrapped up I’ve been in Grady and Cheyenne lately. Even Jeremy has been monopolizing my attention, and I haven’t checked in with Mindy in a few days. Since the day at the seawall, she’s been uprooted to Duke and Nic’s house, and yet I’ve only been by once. She’s been to Grady’s house three times, but Cheyenne spent most of the time talking about school and the boys on the football team and even culinary school again—which is a good sign—but it made it difficult to check in with my cousin. Grady chose not to tell Cheyenne about the seawall incident because it wouldn’t do her any good to know. I wasn’t hurt and that’s what is important.

“Got it,” Grady says. Tall turns down the hallway, and Grady moves to close the door.

“Wait!” I shout and bounce in his arms. Grady raises an eyebrow, brings his hand on the still open door back, slaps my ass, and kneads my stinging cheek. Squirming in his arms, I let out a breathless laugh. Tall reappears in the doorway and bounces from foot to foot in obvious discomfort.

“I wanna go,” I say to Tall. Grady gives my ass another slap, this time softer, and levels me with a hard stare.

“You just got here,” he says. He keeps his voice quiet, but his words are said in earnest. “And we still need to deal with that little thing you did.”

Leaning in and whispering in his ear, I say, “I’m going to go hang out with Mindy, but I’ll be home soon and you can show me all the ways in which I was a very naughty girl.”

“You are one crazy bitch,” he grits out and brushes his rough chin against my cheek. I straighten my legs and shove at his chest with narrowed eyes. He sets me down and blows out a frustrated breath. A devious smile spreads across his face. “Okay, you’re one temperamental bitch. Is that better?”

I point my index finger in his direction as I back up toward the open door. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

His smile grows wider. “Can’t wait.”