Almost two weeks had passed since the incident, and Preacher could still hear her screams, could still see her thrashing on the pool table every time he closed his eyes.
The Judge, had he still been alive, would have stripped his patch for that—for standing idly by and allowing a woman to be raped on his watch. Hell, The Judge would have punched his lights out for even associating with men like the Road Warriors.
But The Judge was gone.
There was only Preacher now. And his vengeance.
Without any other leads, he’d convinced himself that the Rossi family had exacted the hit on his parents. Only he had no proof, and he couldn’t exactly go around accusing a well-known crime syndicate of murder and expect to keep his head attached to his body.
Instead, he’d decided to slowly rip the rug out from beneath the Rossis. And once the Silver Demons were free of them? Adios, you murdering mobster motherfuckers.
But to accomplish everything he had planned, Preacher was going to need a big show of muscle and a hell of a lot more manpower than he had.
When it came to ending the Rossi family, Preacher figured the end would justify the means. Thanks to the Road Warriors, he now had the means.
Television static and slobbery snores greeted Preacher as he entered his apartment. Finding Tiny passed out on the couch, snuggled up to a half-eaten box of cookies, he pried the box from his friend’s grip and switched off the television.
Inside his bedroom he found the lights on and Debbie curled up at the wrong end of the bed. Using her sketch pad as a pillow, she was also clutching a pencil in one hand.
Laughing softly, Preacher took a seat beside her and pulled the pencil from her hand. After tossing it away, he gently tugged the sketch pad from beneath her head and set it on the floor.
He brushed her long dark hair away from her face and caressed her cheek, then her chin, and finally the soft swell of her full bottom lip.
Staring down at her, Preacher felt his lungs deflate.
He wouldn’t have made it the last six months without her. Those first few months after Four Points had been rough. There’d been so much to do, to sort through, and figure out. And so many awful feelings associated with all of it.
Somewhere in the middle of it all Debbie had become his anchor, and the only thing keeping him steady inside the raging sea that had become his life. With her, Preacher didn’t have to be the president of anything. With her, he could still be him.
“Wheels.” He bent down to kiss her, once on the tip of her nose, and twice on her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Preacher?” she mumbled sleepily and blinked up at him. “Preacher!” She shot upright and flung her arms around his neck. “When did you get back?”
“Just now.”
He wrapped his arm around Debbie’s waist and pulled her sideways onto his lap, a position that drew his eyes to the belly bulge beneath her nightgown. Smiling, he placed his hand on her stomach and was startled to feel a flutter beneath his palm.
His eyes met Debbie’s. “Holy shit. Was that… him?”
The shift in Debbie’s demeanor was instantaneous. Her brow furrowed, lines appearing. The excitement shining in her eyes faded fast into unease.
“Yes,” she muttered, shoving his hand away.
Preacher exhaled noisily. He knew she was terrified. From day one she’d refused to talk about the baby, and whenever he brought it up, she’d either change the subject or leave the room. Unlike most pregnant women Preacher had known, Debbie balked at the idea of going shopping for the baby. What few things they did have, had been purchased by Sylvia.
He understood her fear. The pregnancy had been a shock to him as well, especially being so soon after his parents’ death. And, hell, Preacher had no idea how to be a father and hadn’t pictured himself ever becoming one. Still, it was just a matter of time before there was no choice but to accept his fate—he was becoming a father whether he liked it or not.
So instead of wallowing, he told himself that a baby was something to look forward to, something pure and good in a cruel world.
And lately, he needed all the good he could get his hands on.
Preacher bent his head and placed a kiss on Debbie’s lips. “You smell like cookies,” he mumbled. Traveling to her neck, he sniffed her skin.
“Somethin’ you wanna tell me ‘bout you and Tiny?” Sniffing turned to kisses, and he kissed his way back to her mouth.
“Ew, Preacher! Gross!” Laughing, she shoved at his shoulders until he released her. Moving off his lap, she leaned back against the pillows.
Preacher got to his feet and began undressing. “How’s things at the club? Anything I need to know about?”
For a moment Preacher thought Debbie looked troubled, but the look vanished nearly as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him wondering if he’d only imagined it.
She shrugged and then grinned. “Same shit, different toilet.”
“Jesus Christ, Wheels. No more hangin’ ‘round Hightower for you.”
“But he’s my favorite,” she replied, her tone as sweet as sugar. Preacher paused in unbuckling his belt.
“How you gonna say that shit to me?” he demanded. “I thought I was your favorite.”
Debbie smiled slyly. “Oh, you are… when you’re here. And Hightower’s my favorite when you’re not.” She shrugged again.
Preacher yanked his belt free from his jeans with a loud crack. Tossing it aside, he quickly finished undressing and climbed into bed.
Narrowed eyes on Debbie, he growled, “You wanna try that again, smartass?”
Debbie rolled toward him and slung her arm around his stomach and tucked her leg between his. “You could just never leave again. Then you won’t ever have to wonder who my favorite is.”
Already the stress of the last several weeks was beginning to wane. Preacher’s head was clearing. The tension between his shoulders was evaporating. And his dick was waking up and taking notice of the beautiful girl on top of him.
Debbie had become Preacher’s drug of choice. And when he was gone too long, like a junkie craving his next fix, Preacher craved his girl.
He rolled them over, flipping their positions. “I missed you.”
“I missed this mouth.” He nipped at her bottom lip.
“This ass, too,” He slipped a hand beneath her and squeezed one perfectly round cheek.
Debbie wrapped her arms around his neck and slid her fingers through his hair, freeing it from its binding. Spreading her legs apart, she hooked her feet around his calves.
Gazing up at him through hooded eyes, she whispered, “What else?”
He shifted his hips, brushing himself against her. “This what you’re lookin’ for?”
Debbie made a noise—a sexy combination of a gasp and a moan. Arching her back, she slowly dragged her pussy over the length of his dick. Grinning, Preacher pulled away from her only long enough to rid her of her nightgown.
He took his time entering her, watching with male satisfaction as her breath hitched and her eyes flared wide with every inch he claimed.
Ahhh, goddamn. Preacher dropped his face into the sweet-smelling space between her neck and her shoulder. Debbie’s arms tightened around him. Her fingers dug into the skin on his back. Her body arched, she crushed her breasts to his chest. Then her hips began to move—small, jerky movements in an attempt to get him to increase his pace.
“Impatient,” he grunted, and gripped her hip, stilling her.
“Control freak,” she whispered, wriggling wildly beneath him.
With a growl, he increased his speed. And with it, everything quickened. His mouth on hers. Her breaths. His heartbeat. Her hands roaming his back and ass.
Debbie dragged her nails across his shoulders and moaned his name—a sexy-as-hell something she always did right before she came. Glancing at her face, he found her perfect features tightly drawn, and barely breathing. He watched, rapt, as her breath abruptly punched past her lips and her eyelids flutter
ed erratically. Gasping, she cried out his name twice more. And as she clenched and pulsed around him, he doubled his speed and finished only moments later.
Preacher collapsed on the bed beside Debbie and spent the next several minutes just catching his breath. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he turned to look at her. Her eyes were already on him, gleaming with satisfaction.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” He started to smile. “That mean you’re gonna take back that shit you said about Hightower?”
Preacher caught Debbie’s hand before she could smack his chest, and quickly gathered her in his arms. Laughing, he buried his face in her neck.
“I can’t believe Tiny slept through all that screamin’,” he murmured, breathing in the salty scent of her sweat-dampened skin.
Debbie huffed. “I wasn’t screaming.”
“You were definitely screamin’.”
“Was not.”
“Was.”
“Was not.”
Eventually they fell silent, and Preacher soon grew drowsy. Untangling himself from Debbie, he rolled over and turned off the light.
“Preacher?”
“Yeah?”
“I know you can’t tell me what you’ve been doing on the road, but… you haven’t been saving girls at truck stops, have you?”
Although he couldn’t see her face in the dark, and her tone was light, Preacher picked up on her underlying unease.
She worried for nothing. Yeah, he had opportunities to be with other women, but he always passed on them. Because he gave a shit about this girl. Loved her, even.
If there was anything losing his parents had taught Preacher, outside of his newfound thirst for revenge, it was not to take the people he loved for granted.
Reaching out blindly, he pulled Debbie to him, tucking her tightly against him.
“Not a chance in hell,” he said. “I learned my damned lesson the first time.”
Chapter 28
“Joey didn’t say nothin’ about a party,” Sylvia hissed.
Seated inside Sylvia’s cherry red Chevy Chevette, Debbie peered up at the looming brownstone. The music coming from inside was loud enough to be heard from the street. Both the street and the alleyway beside the clubhouse were littered with at least a hundred motorcycles.
Looking over the dozen or so people lounging on the stoop and walkway, men and women that Debbie didn’t recognize, one thing in particular caught her eye: the Viking warrior emblem on the men’s denim vests.
The Road Warriors were here.
Debbie bit down on her bottom lip. Was that why Preacher had insisted she stay away from the club?
For weeks neither Debbie nor Sylvia had been allowed at the club. All the women had been ordered to stay away without being given any real reason why. It was club business, they’d been told. Worse, Preacher was always at the club now. When he did come home, he came home late and was usually gone before she woke in the morning.
Debbie looked at Sylvia. “Is this what they’ve been doing this whole time? Partying?”
Sylvia dark eyes flashed angrily. “Joey hasn’t been home in two weeks. His last phone call was four fuckin’ days ago.”
A wave of anxiety rolled through Debbie and her hands flew to her stomach.
She knew she shouldn’t compare her relationship with Preacher to Joe and Sylvia’s unhappy marriage, yet she couldn’t help but suddenly make those comparisons.
Joe resented Sylvia, and to some extent his son, for trapping him in a marriage he clearly never wanted—that was obvious to anyone who knew them. Yet Sylvia seemed oblivious.
Was that what was happening to her and Preacher? Was he sick of her already and slowly shutting her out of his life? Was that why she wasn’t welcome at the clubhouse anymore?
Tears pricked her eyes. Had this god-awful pregnancy ruined everything?
“Move the fuckin’ car outta the street, ya dumb bitch!” A passing taxi driver shook his fist at Sylvia.
Yanking the keys from the ignition, Sylvia shoved them into her purse and kicked the driver’s side door open. “Fuck you, you fuckin’ piece of shit!” she shouted after the taxi.
Debbie hurried to exit the vehicle and catch up to Sylvia as she stormed toward the clubhouse. Partygoers eyed them with amusement as they wove their way through the small crowd gathered outside. Ducking her head, Debbie could only imagine how they must look—both of them pregnant and at a party full of bikers.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Mary, mother of fucking God.” Sylvia’s New Jersey accent thickened with each muttered curse word.
The front hallway was dark, dense with smoke, and filled with people. A dozen different smells hung heavily in the cloudy air—cigarettes, marijuana, liquor, and sweat.
Debbie followed Sylvia’s horrified stare into the kitchen and froze.
A blonde woman, utterly naked, lay spread-eagled on the same dining table where they ate their Saturday dinners. A man loomed over her, his hips pumping at breakneck speed between her thighs. Other men were gathered around the table taking turns kissing and groping her. Beyond them, a gathered crowd in the kitchen cheered them on.
“She needs a dick in her mouth!” a man shouted.
“She needs two!” someone else answered.
As cheers went up across the kitchen, bodies surged, converging on the table. A chair was thrown, dishes were shattered. Men toppled over one another as they scrambled to climb onto the table.
A large, burly black man emerged, towering over the crowd. He crossed the kitchen, pushing and shoving other men out of his way as if they weighed nothing. Coming up behind the man still pumping furiously into the woman, the burly man grabbed hold of the other man’s neck, wrenched him off the table, and sent him flying into the nearby wall.
While the fighting continued all around him, he took the other man’s place between the woman’s legs and unzipped his pants. And as he began to thrust, cheers and jeers went up across the rowdy crowd.
Sylvia turned briefly to Debbie. “He’s fucking dead,” she spat and spun away. Before Debbie could respond, Sylvia darted down the hallway.
Taking care not to draw attention to herself, Debbie pressed herself against the wall and followed it down the hall. She slowly approached the living room where the music was playing at near-deafening decibels and peered inside.
Everywhere she looked she found more of the same—more Road Warriors and more women in various stages of undress, and almost all of them engaged sexually.
Her wide-eyed stare paused on a familiar shock of blond hair. Knuckles was sagging against the far wall, his eyes screwed shut, his mouth agape. In one hand he held a beer and in the other a fistful of corkscrew curls. Debbie’s eyes dropped to the dark-skinned woman on her knees before him, whose head was bobbing steadily in his lap.
Heat exploded in Debbie’s cheeks, and she quickly looked away, only to immediately spot another familiar face.
On a couch crawling with naked and half-dressed bodies, Crazy-8 was snorting white powder off a topless woman’s breasts. Finished, he used his tongue to lick off anything that remained. When they started kissing, Debbie forced herself to turn away from the hurtful scene. She didn’t understand how he could do that to Louisa—a woman he claimed to love.
Taking a quick, shaky breath, Debbie dragged her sweaty palms down the sides of her dress and then fretfully continued her search through the room. Afraid of finding Preacher in a similar situation, she began frantically twisting her butterfly ring.
Debbie’s search ground to a halt. Leaning back against the bar, Preacher stood alone, surveying the room with an impassive expression. As if there weren’t drunken orgies happening all around him. As if there weren’t two naked women dancing on the bar directly behind him.
Her heart pounding furiously inside her chest, Debbie quivered through her next breath. Now that she’d found him, she had no idea what on earth she was going to say to him. In her current state, shocked and disgusted, she wo
ndered if returning to Sylvia’s car would be better than confronting him.
She was still undecided when one of the women dancing on the bar dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Preacher’s neck. Laughing drunkenly, the woman slumped forward, forcing Preacher to catch her.
When the woman moved in for a kiss, Debbie’s breath turned to ice in her lungs.
He wouldn’t.
Oh God, he couldn’t.
Relief came quickly when Preacher all but dropped her. Grabbing her arm, he hauled her across the room and handed her off to a cluster of men.
Then Preacher returned to the bar and lit up a cigarette. Brow heavy, mouth grim, he continued to inventory his surroundings.
For all intents and purposes, he looked like the Preacher Debbie loved. His long brown hair was tied back in a knot at his nape and his short beard was in need of a trim. He was wearing his usual attire—a pair of black jeans, a Led Zeppelin concert tee, his black leather vest, and his riding boots.
But there was something startlingly different about him. An eerie stillness to him. A strange deadness in his eyes.
This man was harder and colder than she knew Preacher to be, and more detached than she’d ever seen him before. And she’d thought she’d seen him at his worst—grief-stricken, full of rage, and feeling helpless.
“I remember you.” Hot breath, smelling strongly of whiskey tickled Debbie’s ear and cheek. Jerking away, she whirled around.
Flat, dark, dispassionate eyes met her gaze. An oily smile full of malevolence twisted beneath a thick black mustache. If she hadn’t already been flush against the wall, she would have taken several steps back.
“Rocky,” she said, quickly finding her voice. “Hi.”
Rocky’s unnerving stare cruised her figure, halting on her protruding belly. “Well fuck.” He laughed horribly, his black eyes flicking to hers. “That Preacher’s bastard in there?”
Feeling an unexpected flare of protectiveness, Debbie’s hands went to her stomach. “It’s Preacher’s baby,” she countered.