“I’ll fucking kill them all,” he bellowed from the other side of the door. “They want war, I’ll give them a fucking war!”
The big, bald man in front of the door didn’t even flinch as the sound of another crash practically made the building shake. “Who left to get her?” he demanded when Raven stopped in front of him.
“Does it matter?”
“If you or Willa left, yes, it fucking matters. Has this shit not shown you how dangerous it is right now? They’re out for blood, Rave.”
“Well, they got it, didn’t they?” she snapped, then quickly sucked in a harsh breath. “He needs her right now, Spider.”
The door behind Spider opened so suddenly, I nearly stumbled backward. Bash Reid, Matt’s cousin and the MC’s president, stuck his head out of the room. His electric-blue eyes zeroed straight in on his wife. “Did you fucking leave when I told you to stay put? Fuck, Raven! I have too much shit going on right now to add worrying about you and the kids to that plate.”
“Matt needs her,” she told him, not confirming one way or the other if it had been her or Willa who had left the clubhouse to get me.
“I ran here,” I rushed to intercede.
Both men finally took a longer look at me, their eyes widening when they saw the condition of my socked feet. There were holes in the thin, white material, with bloodstains from where I had cut my feet open on rocks and any number of other things that had littered the side of the road. Now that some of the numbness that had invaded my body when I thought something had happened to Matt was starting to fade, I was beginning to feel the pain in my feet. But my discomfort could wait. Matt couldn’t.
Bash muttered something under his breath and stepped back. “Come in, but stay close to me,” he commanded.
I moved forward and Raven started to follow, but Spider put a hand on her arm, stopping her.
“It’s dangerous enough just her coming in, Rave,” Bash growled at her. “Please, for once, just listen and stay out there.”
She clenched her jaw but stayed beside Spider. I didn’t hesitate, though, and walked into the room, not caring what Bash had said. Matt wouldn’t hurt me—ever. I didn’t need his cousin to protect me from him.
“Rory, be careful,” Bash snapped behind me. “He’s not himself right now. He could hurt you without realizing what he’s doing.”
As soon as I saw him, my eyes filled with tears again. His face and clothes were streaked with ash. His blue eyes looked wild, feral, as if he were a caged panther who only wanted to be set free so he could reap vengeance for his brother. His body shook with his rage as he punched the wall with his casted hand, cracking the drywall and splitting the skin across his knuckles. He did it again, and I heard a different kind of cracking sound as his cast splintered and peeled back from the bones it was meant to stabilize and protect.
“Matt,” I breathed and ran across the room, throwing myself against him.
Even with his hand bleeding, he caught me. The rage didn’t leave him, but at least some of the shaking stopped as his injured hand grabbed the back of my shirt and clenched into a tight fist, holding me prisoner against him. I pressed my face into his chest, inhaling the scents of smoke and other chemicals. But underneath it all, I caught a hint of him, and my heart slowly began to ease its torturous pounding now that I had him against me.
Matt didn’t speak, but words weren’t necessary. I could feel the agony rolling off him in waves, and I tried to absorb it, wanting to take on his pain so he didn’t have to feel it.
Chapter Six
MATT
MY MIND FELT LIKE IT was being shredded. I couldn’t focus on anything but the fact that my brother, my best fucking friend in the world, was gone.
Tanner had always had my back, no matter what. Even when I had completely lost it when Rory was taken from me three years ago, he had been right there, helping me fight the madness that invaded my mind and threatened to destroy me. Now, he was gone, and I had a new madness that was infecting not just my brain but my fucking soul.
Everything that happened earlier was on replay. Waking up to my brother crashing my bedroom door open and stealing the keys to my truck. Throwing my pillow at his back as he laughed and called me a pussy, which had made me chase after him. But then I’d heard Raven asking if he was leaving yet and not to forget Max’s favorite bath toy. I hadn’t wanted her to send me with Tanner, so I’d gone back to my room before she could see me.
I had known in my gut when the clubhouse shook from the force of the explosion outside that my brother was gone, but I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. I’d raced outside, fighting my way through the chaos to see Tanner’s burning body in the driver’s seat of my truck with Warden right beside him…
“Matt!”
My name came in a whisper, but I heard it even over the pounding of blood in my ears. I turned just as Rory threw herself against me, and instinct took over as I pulled her close and held on, needing to feel her warmth. My hand tightened into a fist at the back of her shirt, refusing to let her leave me.
Her beautiful face pressed against my chest, getting soot and fuck knew what else on her. I felt her tremble against me, heard the soft little gasps she breathed in. My mind was still in tatters, but my body was very much aware of who I was holding.
“Rory,” Bash’s deep voice called out, and I tightened my hold on her shirt. No way in hell was I going to let him take her from me. Not when she was the only person who could save me.
She lifted her head and glanced over at my cousin, the last blood relative I had left. “It’s fine, Bash. I’ve got this.”
“Someone will be outside this door. If you need anything, just call out.”
“I won’t, but thanks.”
I barely heard the door shut behind him as Rory looked up at me with those bright green eyes now clouded with tears. “I’m not going to ask if you’re okay. I know you’re not. I just need to know if I can stay with you.”
I couldn’t get my throat to work. Of course she could stay. She should have already known the answer to that question. I wanted her with me, would have given anything to have had her with me every day of the last three fucking years.
My gaze latched on to her little pink tongue skimming over her bottom lip. “Can I stay with you…forever?”
Everything inside of me went completely still. Even my brain shut the fuck up and focused solely on her. “Forever?” My throat ached when I rasped out that single word.
“I left, and I’m never going back. I love you, and I’m tired of letting my father try to keep us apart. Can I stay with you forever?”
I moved so fast she let out a small whimper of surprise as I lifted her against the wall. The whimper turned into a little mewling sound as I stepped between her legs, pressing my lower body into her heat as I cupped her chin in one hand. “Forever?” I repeated in a voice that sounded hoarse to my own ears.
“Forever.”
My lips crashed down on hers, taking possession of her mouth as I thrust my tongue in and claimed her. Her fingers stabbed through my hair, raking over my scalp as she kissed me back. My fingers dug into her hips, reaching for the top of her leggings and jerking them and her panties down.
I lost all control, not even thinking about what I was doing as I stripped off her bottoms. Her whimpers and wild little mewls of pleasure only spurred me on when I cupped her bare pussy with the hand that didn’t have the remains of the cast on it. I thrust my middle finger deep inside her tightness, growling low in my throat when I felt just how wet she was for me.
Her fingers grasped a handful of my hair and pulled my head back roughly. “Yes,” she cried out when I thrust another finger into her, spreading them inside of her to get her ready for me. “Matt, please.”
I pressed my thumb down hard on her clit. “You want me?”
“Yes! Please. I want you so bad.” She sucked on my neck, her teeth sinking into it with just enough pressure to make me shake. “Please. I need your cock ins
ide of me.”
Her hands were already working on my belt and the snap of my jeans. Seconds later, she was reaching inside my boxers and wrapping her soft fingers around my rock-hard cock.
“Fuck,” I groaned, my hips thrusting against her as she stroked me from base to tip.
Rory guided me to her dripping pussy, and without another thought, I pushed into her roughly. She let out a sharp gasp as her walls stretched around my thickness, her eyes rolling back as she clutched my shoulders. I couldn’t stop long enough to ask if she was okay, but the little whimpers that were coming from her and the way her walls were already contracting around my shaft told me she was right there with me.
Her head bounced against the wall, and I moved the hand that wasn’t in a cast to protect her as I fucked her harder.
“Matt,” she whimpered. “I’m close.”
“Fuck.” I released my hold on her ass, letting her legs drop to the floor and then turned her so that her chest was pressed to the wall. Clasping both of her sexy as fuck hips in my hands, I thrust into her from behind, hard.
She cried out as her pussy contracted around my cock. “Matt!”
Her thighs trembled as I pounded into her over and over again.
“Rory!” I bent over her back as my cock erupted inside of her, flooding her with my come…
As reality began to set in and I could breathe again, I realized what I had just done. I looked down at Rory’s naked ass in my hands and felt shame flood through me.
This was not how I wanted to it to be with this girl. She deserved better than being taken against a wall like one of the club sheep. Swallowing hard, I lifted her into my arms and carried her over to the bed. After laying her down, I went into the bathroom and grabbed a towel. As I came back into the bedroom, I saw the mess I had made earlier. There was a broken chair against the wall, and I was going to need a new TV. The wall I’d just fucked Rory against was cracked with smears of blood across it.
A glance down at my casted hand showed me the cast was destroyed, barely hanging on to my wrist, and my knuckles were cut open deep. Clenching my jaw, I pulled the rest of the damn thing off before going back to Rory and cleaning her up. Once I had wiped away all traces of my come, I stuffed my cock back into my boxers and zipped up my jeans.
She rolled onto her side and held out her hands to me. “Come hold me?”
There wasn’t a force in the world that could’ve stopped me from giving her what she wanted. I crawled into bed beside her. After grabbing the blanket from the end of the bed to cover us up, I pulled her head down onto my chest. She shivered and wrapped an arm around my waist.
The full force of the day’s events suddenly seemed to press down on me. Now that the rage had faded for the moment, all I could feel was the loss.
Tanner was dead. My big brother was gone.
The sight of him inside my truck, the flames making it impossible to even get close to it, haunted me, and my stomach churned at the memories.
Tears stung my eyes, and I clenched them closed as I hid my face in Rory’s hair. Like she always did, she seemed to know I was losing control of myself. Her arm tightened around me for a second before she shifted so she was lying with her head on my pillow, and she pulled my head down onto her chest.
She combed her fingers through my hair, telling me without words that it was okay to break down. No one was there to see but her. My arms went around her, holding on tight as I let go for the first time since I was a little kid.
Silent tears fell from my eyes, soaking through Rory’s shirt. She didn’t speak, didn’t make a single noise, knowing I needed the quiet more than words of comfort right then. This girl, she had always gotten me. Even from the first day we met, she instinctively had seemed to know exactly what I needed and when to give it to me. She’d become a part of my soul from the instant she’d flashed her sassy yet adorably shy smile at me.
Chapter Seven
Gracie
I WATCHED AS THE SHERIFF spoke into his phone before I turned away from the sight of one of the men who supposedly ran Creswell Springs, sickened just looking at him. The trouble with this town wasn’t the MC, but the corrupt SOBs who were in the mayor’s pocket. Ever since I had started working with Jenkins, I’d seen firsthand just how slimy the DA and sheriff were, but neither was nearly as bad as the mayor himself.
That he had it out for the MC had me wondering if it could have been him who’d caused the tragedy that the fire department was still cleaning up.
My eyes lifted to what was left of Matt’s truck. The paramedics had already extracted Tanner’s and Warden’s bodies, something Hawk hadn’t wanted me to see. But I needed to be there to make sure their bodies had been treated respectfully. When Jenkins finally retired, the MC would be my clients, and I wasn’t about to let my mentor down by not giving them the full extent of legal protection I possibly could.
Now there was nothing left of the truck but a steel frame, the seat inside only a pile of warped springs. The smell of burning flesh still lingered in the air, making my already churning stomach protest every time I dared to breathe too deeply.
“Darlin’, you should be inside away from all of this.”
My gaze snapped away from the ghost of a truck and straight to my grandfather. Jack’s face, like those of most of the other MC brothers who were still spread out around the parking lot, was streaked with ash. His gray hair had soot darkening it, and his clothes were filthy.
“I already told Hawk I need to be here for this. I’m not leaving until Bates and his men are gone.”
Jack’s eyes went across the parking lot to where my boyfriend was talking to one of the firefighters. This guy was one of the few whom the MC trusted, which meant I trusted him too. But while Hawk was talking to the guy, his eyes kept coming back to me, making sure I was still there. That I was safe.
“The boys have been taken to the hospital’s morgue, Gracie girl. All these jackasses are doing now is looking for something they can hype up and arrest someone over.”
I pressed the back of my hand to my nose as the wind began to blow a little harder, stirring up all those godawful smells that had been screwing with my gag reflex for the past few hours. “I know, Jack. That’s why I’m not going anywhere until Sheriff Bates gets his idiot men off the property.”
“You’re looking green, Gracie.” My head swiveled around to find my father coming up behind me. It was still a little crazy to think that Trigger was my father, and not the evil man I had grown up thinking I shared DNA with. But every time I saw Trigger, my heart leaped a little. In relief that I didn’t share a single gene with the man who was responsible for my mother’s death. With love for the man who had helped create me and had spent the last few months trying to make up for not having been a part of my childhood. I was just thankful that he was a part of my life now, that I got to have family who cared enough about me to worry about me. Lord knew no one in the Morgan clan ever had. “You gonna be sick?”
“No, I’m fine…” But even as the words left my throat, I felt the bile coming up to follow them out. I bent in half, retching up the meager breakfast I had forced down so Hawk wouldn’t hound me about not eating for the third day this week.
Trigger grabbed my hair and held it back, keeping it from getting any of the revolting smelling vomit in it. Not that it would have mattered. All the smoke had soaked into every pore—along with every other smell that had been in the air—and it was going to take more than one shower to get them out.
“Baby!” I heard Hawk’s running feet before I saw them stop right beside me. I felt his strong, warm hand touch my back, grounding me when I needed it the most.
When I trusted the now scant contents of my stomach to stay there, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and straightened before stepping back from the mess I’d made.
“You okay, darlin’?” Jack asked concernedly. “You’re pale as death, girl. Your lips are bloodless.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “My stoma
ch is just in knots from everything that’s happened today.”
My grief over losing Tanner and Warden, one who had become like a brother to me, the other just as much family as any other MC brother, was staggering. I wanted to cry, but I knew if I started, I wasn’t likely to stop. That, on top of having to watch the cops and listening to them joke about the death of two good men, was fraying my nerves.
Tires crunching over gravel and asphalt filled my ears, and I glanced over at the gate to the MC’s clubhouse. Jenkins’s car rolled into the parking lot. Once he was parked, he came over to me. He was scanning his eyes over my face just as the other three men in my life were doing. But whereas the other three were trying to urge me to go inside, my mentor knew better than to try to coddle me. I might be sweet little Gracie at home, but at the office, my boss had started comparing me to a barracuda.
“Bash available?”
“He’s inside, dealing with Matt,” Hawk informed him, keeping his hand on my back.
“A few things have come up. We should talk.”
“Not yet,” I cautioned, and all our eyes went to where the sheriff was still on his phone, probably still talking to the mayor, whose daughter was now somewhere inside the clubhouse. “Let’s let the place clear out first.”
“No, Gracie. It has to be now.”
“But…”
Hawk turned to Trigger. “You cover the front door. No one comes or goes.”
“On it, VP.”
Hawk took my hand, but I locked my knees, refusing to be moved. They could have this meeting without me and catch me up later. I needed to make sure nothing else happened. Looking down at my stubborn face, Hawk growled something under his breath and turned to my grandfather. “Uncle Jack, eyes on that motherfucker Bates.”
“I’ve got this, boy. You just go deal with Jenks.”