“I am, too, since it has—”
“Bitch, what’s taking you so long?” Killyama asked, motioning for her to come back onto the dance floor.
Willa jumped up, going back to dance with her.
Three songs later, they all groaned when someone slipped a slow song into the playlist. The floor emptied out. Willa sank back on her chair, picking up her tea as Lily and Beth both sat down. It didn’t take Shade long to take a seat next to his wife, bringing her a glass of the tea she was drinking.
“It tastes good, doesn’t it?” she asked Lily after she took a drink.
“I love tea. Sex Piston makes sure she stocks it behind the bar when she knows I’m coming.”
“I hope it’s all right that Crazy Bitch gave me some, too.”
Lily looked at her strangely. “That’s not—”
Jenna set down beers in front of Sex Piston, Killyama, and Diamond who flopped down next to Willa. When she finished, she started to leave then paused, staring down at Willa with a fake smile of friendliness that didn’t fool her.
“Thought I’d save Crazy Bitch the hassle of going to the bar for refills. How’s business going, Willa?”
“Fine,” Willa answered warily, taking another drink of her tea nervously. She had been the victim of bullying too many times not to see it coming. Jenna wasn’t the type to do anyone a favor. Her sole intention of coming to the table had been to get in her face.
“If you want, I can write down my recipe for frosting.”
“Why would she want your fucking recipe? How hard is it to open a can?” Crazy Bitch snickered, which only made Jenna angrier.
“It must be pretty damn good for Lucky to say it tasted better than Willa’s when he licked it off my tits.”
All the smiles at the table disappeared.
Willa tried to keep her face impassive so Jenna wouldn’t know the hurt she had inflicted, but the woman wasn’t done.
“Lucky enjoying riding that bike he won off Rider?”
Although Willa had noticed that Lucky was riding a bike other than his red one, she had assumed it was a club bike.
“I think it’s hilarious as shit that he’s riding a bike he won betting Moon he would ride you first.”
“He made a bet with Moon that he would have sex with me first?”
“Yes. Of course, both agreed to let the other fuck you when they got you in the club.”
Willa looked across the table at Shade and knew Jenna was telling the truth. Her perfect world tilted off its axis.
Over the span of her life, Willa had been the recipient of many hurtful comments, too many to count. However, none had ever hurt to the degree that Jenna had just inflicted.
Shade started to say something, but Willa shook her head. She didn’t need him to defend her nor the women who had heard the insult. She didn’t need anyone to defend her, not anymore.
“Lucky may have gotten the motorcycle, but I got the ring.” Willa lifted up her hand, flashing the big, pink diamond that was on her wedding finger.
Jenna’s face flushed angrily.
“The only thing you ended up with was another club to wait on. This time, without getting paid, and the men certainly don’t have to make a bet to have you. They don’t even have to ask, do they?”
Jenna’s hand went to her hair, nearly jerking her out of her chair, but Willa had been prepared for her reaction. It wasn’t the first time her hair had been used as a weapon against her.
Willa braced herself, taking the pain before her hands went to Jenna’s, finding her thumb and bending it back mercilessly.
The woman screamed in pain, dropping to her knees.
“At least you didn’t call me fat this time. I appreciate that.” Willa bent her thumb back farther.
“You’re going to break my hand,” Jenna sobbed.
“All it takes to make me stop is one word,” Willa said heartlessly.
“Sorry! I’m sorry.”
Her cries made Willa sick. She didn’t want to hurt her, but she was done being treated like a dog from the pound who expected nothing except torture. The confidence in herself that her parents had never instilled in her had developed since her marriage to Lucky. He may not love her, but he had given her one gift—the ability to face fear and to stand up for herself. It was something he was going to regret as soon as she got home.
Willa released Jenna, watching as she lurched to her feet.
“I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled, putting her hand over her mouth then running toward the restrooms.
“I guess she couldn’t handle the pain. It does hurt like a mother.” Sex Piston laughed.
“Thank you for showing me that move,” Willa toasted Killyama.
“I told you it would work when Sex Piston showed me that bald spot on your head,” she toasted her back.
“Do you want to dance some more?” Willa drained her glass, motioning to a pale Jenna coming out of the bathroom to bring her another one.
“Hell yes, but do you think it’ll be safe to drink anything she brings you.”
“I don’t plan to drink it. I just wanted to piss her off some more.”
Willa went to follow Killyama to the dance floor, pausing only long enough to give Shade a firm glance when she saw he had pulled out his cell phone.
“Don’t even think of giving my husband a heads-up. He told me that you’re really a big softie under that exterior of yours. He told me you cried when you asked him for Lily’s hand in marriage.” Willa crossed her fingers behind her back.
Lily looked at her husband with tears in her eyes. “You did?” she gushed. “He never told me that. That’s so sweet.”
Willa had noticed, the madder Shade became, the more impassive he became, and she smiled in satisfaction when he slid the phone back in his pocket. Some of Lucky’s luck was beginning to rub off on her.
Chapter 36
Lucky looked up from his hand of cards for the fourth time. “Winter text you back yet?”
“Not yet,” Viper answered impatiently. “I just texted her. Give her time.”
“They should have been home an hour ago. Willa’s not answered my texts for the last two hours. Shade hasn’t answered … I’m getting worried.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Viper said, throwing a twenty into the pot.
Lucky absently threw in a twenty then another to raise the stakes.
“If I had a woman, she would answer my texts.” Rider threw in his money. “She’d know there would be hell to pay if she didn’t.”
Lucky threw the brother a disgusted look. “How in the fuck do you ever get laid?”
“The women love me.” Rider’s smug face was nothing but a challenge to Lucky.
“Tell me one woman who loves you,” Lucky said sarcastically.
“Willa, she loves me. She told me so, and she wrote me into her will.” Rider flipped him off.
“Don’t get cocky. She’ll write you out of it next month.” At least she had settled down about changing her will weekly since Diamond had gone up on her rates. Now she only did it every month.
“Maybe, maybe not. She said she thinks I’m special.”
“You are. You only have one brain cell left from that weed you smoke, and it’s struggling to survive. She thinks of you like a kid brother,” Lucky mocked.
“No, she doesn’t. Besides, I’m older than her.”
“Chronologically, not mentally.”
Rider looked at him suspiciously. “What in the fuck does that mean?”
Lucky rolled his eyes. “I rest my case.” He laid his hand of cards on the table, leaning back to gloat a little himself as he raked in his winnings then looked at his cell phone again.
“Want me to text her?” Rider offered, taking out his cell.
“If she won’t text me, why would she text you?”
Rider ignored him, texting Willa.
A sudden thought came to Lucky’s mind.
“Why do you have Willa’s number?”
Rider didn’t look up from texting. “I text her a couple of times a day.”
“What in the fuck do you text Willa for during the day?”
“I don’t always text her. Sometimes, she texts me.”
Lucky decided he was going to have a long talk with his wife when she arrived home.
“She text anyone else here?” Lucky gazed around the table at the brothers who refused to look at him. He barely looked at the cards that Viper dealt him. Turning in his seat, he looked at Train sitting at the bar, playing with Jewel’s nipple.
“Does Willa text you?”
“She has a couple of times.”
Lucky turned back around, staring down at his cards and frowning. Not paying attention, he bet too much on the hand. Showing his cards, he drank the rest of his beer as Rider smirked, gathering his winnings.
“Relax, brother, we’re just fucking with you. Guess I’m not as stupid as you thought.” He waved the cash he had just won under his nose.
The sound of the front door opening was the only thing that saved Rider from the ass-whipping he was about to get.
Shade walked in with Lily, Winter came in slightly weaving, Beth wasn’t in much better shape, and Diamond and Rachel each seemed sober yet had a glazed look to their eyes. Willa was the last to come in. She had left looking sleek and elegant, but coming back, she looked like a holy mess. Her hair was messed up, one side higher than the other. The handkerchief that had been placed between her breasts was missing, leaving her cleavage on display, and her beauties were barely held in place by the red bra that was showing.
The other wives went to their husbands, while Willa totally ignored him.
Winter tugged Viper’s arm. “I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”
“You drink some beer?” Viper teased.
“Yeah, that’s it. Let’s go,” she hissed, nodding her head toward the stairs.
“O … kay.” Viper went toward the steps with his wife who couldn’t leave the room fast enough.
“Let’s go, Shade. Stori’s waiting for us, and I need to feed John.” Lily tried to tug her husband along.
“You go along. I want to drink a beer. You don’t need me to feed John.”
Lily threw her husband a wild look before fleeing the room.
Lucky was beginning to have a suspicion that something wasn’t right when Willa, instead of greeting him, went to Moon who was sitting on a chair with Ember sitting on the arm, rubbing her hand under his T-shirt.
Willa leaned over the chair, placing a hand on each arm. Moon’s eyes lowered, his mouth dropping open.
“Knox, I’m ready to leave,” Diamond tried to coax her husband up from the card table.
He tugged her down onto his lap. “I’m not.”
“Cash…” Rachel began.
Cash threw his arm over her shoulder. “Vixen, I’ve lost two hundred dollars tonight, and I’m not leaving until I get my money’s worth.”
Lucky stood up, wanting to hear what his wife was saying to Moon.
“Did you or did you not make a bet with my husband?”
“He wasn’t your husband when we made the bet,” Moon replied, unable to raise his eyes to meet hers.
“I see.” Willa turned to face Lucky with her hands on her hips.
“Siren … If you have something you want to know, ask me.”
“Don’t ‘siren’ me.” He heard the barest trace of a tremble in her voice. “You were going to share me with Moon, and he wasn’t the only one you were going to share me with.”
Not one tear glistened in his wife’s eyes. The only thing he could see there was hurt.
“Willa, let me explain.”
“Is that new bike you’ve been riding the one you won in the bet?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did you tell Jenna you liked her frosting better than mine?”
Lucky’s face paled when he saw her hand unconsciously go to her breast. He knew she had been told he had done the same thing to Jenna that he had done to her.
“Yes … Please, listen to me—”
“Smiling or hurting, which one am I doing now, Lucky?” she whispered.
He took a step forward. “I only bet Moon to make him stay away from you. Hell, Willa, half the town’s in love with you. Dustin can’t stay away from you, Alec ate junk food for you, Rider wants to know what you’re doing all the time, and Moon’s been driving back and forth between Ohio and Kentucky just to get a glance of you. So, yeah, I bet him before we were engaged. I kept telling myself that I was doing it to protect you from him, but I lied to myself. God knows I lied to myself from the moment I looked up from reading my sermon and saw you sitting in the church with the sun shining down on you. I was going to marry Beth just so I could keep you safe from Bridge.”
“What?” Beth gasped.
“I wouldn’t have let him hurt her any more than I would have you,” Lucky explained, “but I was so close to breaking that I was afraid, if I didn’t marry Beth, I would seduce you. I kept telling myself what I felt for you was a figment of my imagination, because I was undercover for so long. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want my ring on anyone’s finger but yours, despite the lies I told myself.
“I took the bike and have been riding it, yes, because I paid Rider for it. He finally agreed to sell it to me.” He ran his hand through his hair. This was going to be the hardest part to explain.
“Yes, I told Jenna her frosting tasted better than yours. I lied, and you know I did, but that’s not what has you so pissed. What has you so mad is that I did the taste-test the same way.”
His voice went achingly soft. “I’m going to tell you something that’s not easy for a man to admit. The only way I could touch that woman or any woman was to pretend it was you under me. That doesn’t make it right, and it’s pretty shitty, I know, but it’s the truth. I fucked up with how I treated you from the beginning. I should have realized what I felt for you wasn’t going away. I should have dealt with Bridge a long time ago. I didn’t want another man’s death on my conscience. But the hardest part was what God was trying to tell me all along.”
“What?” Willa whispered.
Lucky took a step forward. “When I heard His voice that day in church, I misunderstood. I thought He was telling me to do more, to give of myself more.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No, He was trying to tell me I would have more. He wanted me to see that I would have more brothers than I could count, that I would have a town I would be more than content in, that I would have one I’d love. But most of all, He showed me that I would have more than a wife by my side. I would find a woman who would take my soul and give me hers. I would have more, much more, than I ever expected and much more than I damn sure deserve.
“Ask me how much I love you,” he choked out, praying she would ask.
“How much do you love me?” she repeated.
Lucky held his arms open as wide as he could. “This much.”
Willa gave him a watery smile, stepping into his arms, which he closed tightly around her.
“Do you really think her frosting tastes better than mine?”
Lucky came to the conclusion that he was never going to understand his wife if she was too shy to ask the real question.
“No, siren, no one makes better frosting than you,” Lucky said truthfully.
“Let me see your hands.”
Chapter 37
“Are you sure about this?”
Willa jumped when she heard Lucky’s question from the other side of the bathroom door.
“I’m sure.” Willa made her voice sound firm, but inside, she was trembling with nerves. She wasn’t afraid of Lucky; she just didn’t want to disappoint him. She didn’t want to come up short compared to the other women he had played with before.
“If you’re not afraid, why aren’t you coming out?”
&n
bsp; “I’m just finishing up what you told me to do,” Willa lied. She had finished showering and wiping herself down with alcohol ten minutes ago.
Her hand went to the doorknob. So help her God, if she opened the door and he bore any resemblance to Jack Nicholson in The Shining, she was going to lock herself in the bathroom, screaming the safe word he had made her pick.
She slowly opened the door to see Lucky leaning against the bedroom wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was only wearing a pair of jeans, his face hidden in the shadows of the bedroom, giving him a dangerous appearance she wasn’t so sure was merely an illusion.
Her heart stuttered when she saw the selection of knives laid out on the nightstand with a pitcher of ice water and a glass. What was that for? To throw on her if she passed out?
The bedroom lights had been turned out with candles providing dim lighting. The bed had been turned down, and he had even changed the sheets to red silk.
Willa’s hands tightened on the belt of her robe. “What do you want me to do?” She bit her lip, unable to take her eyes off the bed.
Lucky’s loud sigh drew her attention from the wanton sight that was beginning to have an effect on her body.
“Willa, let’s forget it. We can try it another night. The purpose of a scene is to heighten your arousal, not frighten you to death.”
“No, I want to do this, Lucky. You promised.”
Lucky straightened from the wall, walking toward her. His masculine beauty never failed to make her pussy quiver in need, overriding her fear.
Lucky reached out, curving his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her toward his body.
“If we’re going to do this, you have to give me something to help you.”
Willa eagerly nodded her head.
“What’s your fantasy, Willa? The one in the back of your mind that you think about when you’re daydreaming or I’m fucking you?”
Willa shook her head. “I don’t…”
Lucky reached down, raising her hand and showing the crossed fingers.
“Tell me, siren.” Lucky’s voice deepened, going from a request to a command.