“I am. I’m bored. I was coming down here to see if you had some resistance bands or light weights that I could use to at least do some arm workouts.” She looked around quickly, then gave me a nervous smile. “I don’t see any. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though. I doubt you guys use resistance bands.”

  “Nah. I don’t even know what the hell that is, so I’d say we probably don’t have one.” My breathing was slowing, but sweat still ran over my bare chest as I put my hands on my hips. She continued to look around, letting her eyes rest on anything other than me. After a few moments, a smile slid onto my face. “Now what are you looking for?”

  “I have no idea. I was hoping you’d start talking first.” She ducked her head and glanced up at me as she wrung her hands together.

  “Me? Start talking? About what?” Was this the same woman who was constantly picking fights with me? I didn’t know what to think of this new side of her.

  Melia moved and sat down on one of the benches. She took a deep breath before slowly lifting her eyes to meet mine. “Look, I’m sorry. I tend to just fly by the seat of my pants and say the first thing that comes to mind. After I came inside I was just thinking about a conversation I had with your sister and realized that I needed to apologize to you. This pregnancy has only added to my crazy hormones, but I’m not normally so confrontational. Hell, I seem to be able to get along with everyone, except you lately. So, I would like to extend a peace offering at least for the next few weeks since I’ll be here and you’ll be here.”

  I stayed where I was and just continued to stare at her. I’d like to know more about what Ryan had been talking about. What she was saying about me to Melia? Is that what the conversation had been about or was it something else? Did it really matter? If I could have peace back in my house, I’d give it a shot. I reached out a hand to her and said, “Deal. I’ll at least give it a shot. You like to make me snap as well so we’ll see if we can actually get along.”

  Inside, I grinned like a wolf. Things were going exactly the way I wanted. She wanted to be friends, I wanted to fuck her. Like she seriously wanted to be friends with someone like me. Didn’t matter what was really behind the white flag as long as I was one step closer to acheiving my goal.

  The damn annoying boy band started singing again, interrupting our conversation. I seriously needed to remember to change the ringtone back. Turning my back to Melia, I answered the phone. “Yeah.”

  “Hammer didn’t make it,” Dirty said softly.

  A growl slipped out before I realized it. “Fuck!” I yelled, picking up a bench and hurling it across the gym to watch it smash into the wall. “Damn it,” I growled again, yanking on my own hair in frustration. It was then that I noticed that Melia hadn’t left as I had expected her to when I turned my back to her. In fact, she was still sitting there looking at me, not with wide, frightened eyes like I expected, but with something close to compassion in them. What the fuck did she know? Sorrow. There was no time for that. I pointed at her, then the door. “Out.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but I gave her a hard look that made it clear it wasn’t up for discussion. Frowning, she got up and slowly walked to the door.

  Dirty was telling me something in my ear, but I was glaring at Melia. She’d seen a moment of weakness and that pissed me off. At the door, she turned, giving me one final look before leaving. I turned my attention back to Dirty as he finished telling me the extent of damage that had been dealt to Hammer’s body. I didn’t want to know all that shit. All I needed to know was who did it and how bad it was. We had lost one of our men to Scrapes. I couldn’t let that go. I wouldn’t. He had to pay for taking a life. Sure, we’d exchanged beatings and blows to each other and our men, but this was too far. Eye for an eye, asshole.

  I told Dirty to get his ass home so we could have a meeting and decide what we were going to do. No longer caring, I threw my phone across the room and followed it with another bench, both smashing into the wall and leaving dents. I hated feeling like I was helpless, which was exactly what I felt like.

  Deciding the best idea was to go find a whore to take some aggression out on, I angrily stomped to the living room and grabbed the arm of the first whore I found and dragged her into my office, her heels clicking on the floor as she tried to keep up with me. The anger flowing through my muscles had my cock hard and ready when I pulled it out of my jeans.

  Without a single word, I bent the whore over the desk and yanked down the tiny shorts she had on. I slid on a condom I snagged from my desk drawer before wrapping her long hair around my hand. Pulling her head by the grip I had on her hair, I roughly shoved my cock into her.

  “Fuck,” I groaned, slamming my hips against her. Fast, hard, and angry. My free hand gripped onto her shoulder, another point of leverage to pull her back to meet my greedy thrusts.

  “Oh, Wrench!” the whore moaned. I leaned forward, and sank my teeth into her shoulder, causing her to scream out, which had been the goal. I wanted her to hurt the way I did. It wasn’t her fault I lost a good man, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use her to take away some of my pain.

  To make up for the bite, I reached around, slipping a hand between her thighs to tease her clit while the sound of our skin brutally meeting continued to fill the room. Her tiny thighs squeezed against my hand as she reached one hand up behind her and tried to sink it into my hair, but I pulled my head away and slammed into her especially hard, so she’d lower her hand for support. She screamed out when she found her release minutes later and I pulled out of her.

  I used my grip on her hair, to make her turn around to face me. She leaned in like she was going to kiss me, but again I leaned back and pulled down on her hair to make her sink to her knees. With my free hand, I pulled the condom off and tossed it behind the desk before making her take my dick in her mouth.

  It took at least ten minutes of her working my cock with her mouth and hands before I finally felt the stirrings of an orgasm. Fisting my own cock, I beat off until finally come spurted out of my cock and onto her face. The sight of my release made me smile as I adjusted my pants and zipped them back up.

  “Go. Clean up.” I nodded towards the door. The girl made a face and grumbled under her breath as she picked up her shorts, but did as I told her, shutting the door behind her. Where the fuck was Dirty? He should be back. I wiped off my sweaty chest with a towel from one of my desk drawers and threw it on the floor near the condom before going in search of him.

  In the kitchen a few guys were gathered, drinking and eating as usual. Not finding Dirty, I turned to go to the game room. The whore I’d just fucked was coming out of the bathroom down the hall from my office. She smiled and winked at me, then she even threw one of those girly little waves at me before walking towards me.

  I scoffed, turning on my heel to walk away from her. I closed the door to the game room behind me, hoping she would get the hint. She’d been a lousy lay anyway, not that it mattered. She could’ve been the best lay I’d ever had and I still would want nothing to do with her.

  In the game room, I finally found Dirty. He was sittting on one of the many couches with Ryan. In a nearby loveseat, Melia looked upon the couple. Dirty was speaking quietly to Ryan, who was shaking her head before whispering back. I headed towards them. When I was only a few feet away, I heard the door bang against the wall and the whore scream my name. Sighing deeply, I turned to face her as I tried to keep my temper from exploding on her.

  “What?” I growled at her.

  “Are you really going to act like we didn’t just fuck in your office? I’ll probably have bruises from how hard you fucked me and you can’t even act like I exist?” The whore was speaking loudly, almost yelling. Obviously she was trying to get the attention of the others in the room.

  “I don’t have time for this shit right now,” I sneered at her and turned back towards Dirty.

  “But you had time to fuck me just minutes ago!” Her voice hitched like she was going to cry, wh
ich only pissed me off more.

  I spun around and stomped over to her. Grabbing onto her arm, I made her follow me as I exited the room and walked out the front door.

  “I don’t know how you got here. I don’t care. You are no longer welcome. We fucked, you said yes and you enjoyed it. End of story. You aren’t entitled to shit here and you definitely don’t get to make a scene in my house, so get out of here and don’t come back.” I released her a bit roughly and she stumbled back, falling to her ass on the driveway. Slamming the front door behind me, I went back to the game room. I threw open the door; speaking loudly enough that everyone could hear me, I said, “Meeting in the back, now. And since it seems to have been forgotten, none of the whores or wives are welcome. You are nothing here and don’t forget it.”

  With that I slammed the door behind me. Time to plan our revenge on Scrapes in Hammer’s honor.

  ~Melia~

  Well, that was interesting. I thought I was finally breaking down some walls with Wrench while sitting in the gym, then he’d answered his phone and flipped the hell out. I knew it had to be bad news just from the look on his face. Apparently, he didn’t like that I saw it, though, because he kicked me out of the gym with a nasty glare to make sure I wouldn’t come back, I’d guess. Fine by me; I didn’t care to see him go all caveman, throwing things around and yelling, if he wasn’t going to tell me what was going on.

  As I was heading back to my room, Ryan met me on the stairs.

  “Let’s go hang out in the game room for a while. You can get to know some of the guys and lie on one of the couches.” Ryan didn’t give me a chance to object and led my down the stairs by looping her arm with one of mine. Once inside the so-called game room, she picked one of the many couches and sat down. “Sit, lie down, do something besides stand there.”

  Slowly sinking down, I sat next to her as my eyes took in the rest of the room. There were a few other people in the room gathered around the pool table. It was probably best if I tried to follow the doctor’s orders; I lay on my side on the couch with my feet curled up next to Ryan’s hips. She had started texting on her phone and had a concerned look on her face, so I tried to give her some privacy by closing my eyes and feigning sleep. My eyes were feeling heavy anyway; maybe I’d squeeze in a small nap.

  I knew the whole bed rest thing was going to be hard for me and so far I knew I was failing at it. It had only been a few days though, and I silently vowed to myself to get better at staying in my room. Only it wasn’t really my room. It was a guest room at someone else’s house. Hopefully if I spent some time getting out my computer and other things it would help me feel more comfortable.

  “Hey, wake up.” Ryan’s voice crept into my sleep-dazed brain. Guess I had fallen asleep after all. She shook my shoulder lightly and I blinked my eyes open. First thing I noticed was that Ellis was standing right in front of me, so I sat up, making room for him. Looking from the space I’d made to the large man, I decided it’d probably just be better to move to the loveseat and let him have the couch with Ryan.

  As soon as I moved, he sat down and pulled Ryan close as they had a quiet conversation. I yawned and covered my mouth; I was more tired than I had thought and the short nap only emphasized that.

  I felt the entire atmosphere of the room change when the door opened. I turned my head slightly and noticed that it was a shirtless Wrench who had entered. His eyes were locked on Ryan and Ellis, mine were locked on his slick, hairless, muscled chest and abdomen. As he stalked in my direction, I could see all the muscles shift and flex with each step. His sweat-slickened chest highlighted all his glorious muscles and made them glimmer in the light. I swallowed hard as my mouth watered, begging to get a taste of them.

  I don’t know where that idea came from, but suddenly it was all I could focus on. My panties grew damp watching him move and his pure, masculine, raw energy was sucking me in. He didn’t even have to look in my direction to have me panting. That is, until a scantily-clad woman came into the room yelling at him. He turned to speak to her. I wasn’t listening to what was being exchanged, but got the gist that it was a lovers’ quarrel of some type. I wasn’t surprised he was fucking around with one of the whores around here; hell, probably many of them. That’s basically all they were around for, according to Ryan.

  Wrench pulled the woman out of the room and I turned back to Ellis and Ryan, who were both now staring at the door Wrench had disappeared through.

  “Oh, he’s in a great mood,” Ryan said, shaking her head. Ellis tenderly kissed her lips and whispered something in her ear that had a wicked smile crossing her face before he got up and walked around the couches.

  “Nice to see you, Melia. Sorry, there’s a lot going on and I can’t stay. I need to go find Wrench.” Ellis nodded at me then continued toward the door.

  I turned back towards Ryan. “Maybe we should stay down here more often. This is the most excitement I’ve had in a while.” I shook my head, but couldn’t help smiling. It was interesting to see how different the environment was at the house since I wasn’t hidden up in my room. Just as I moved back over to the couch to lie back down, the door to the room flew open and Wrench started yelling about a meeting, then slammed it as he stormed away. Every single man in the room moved to follow their leader. My eyes bulged as I turned to Ryan. “What. Was. That?”

  “Oh, that would be Wrench throwing a tantrum. He’s really stressed right now. Plus, I bet that little skank pissed him off more. You think they’d know what the fuck they were getting into with him. It’s not like he’s ever been into relationships. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in anything more serious than a quick fuck. These stupid women think they’ll be the one to change him, I suppose. Idiots.” Ryan kicked her boots out and rested them on top of the coffee table. She waved me over to put my head in her lap. When I made a face, she sighed and gave me a look that made me give in instead of arguing. Not that I thought she’d hurt me, but I could tell she didn’t care for my resistance to her demands.

  Speaking of, that sounded a lot like what I’d heard of Wrench. Guess they weren’t all that different; both had huge walls up to keep anyone from getting too close. I moved so that my head rested in Ryan’s lap, looking towards her boots. Her hand rested on my small belly. I didn’t care for the touch, but I didn’t think she’d listen if I told her so I stayed quiet. After a while watching the women who’d been left behind when all the men had followed Wrench out of the room, my eyelids sank lower and I drifted off to sleep.

  “Fuck!” Ryan’s harsh tone woke me from my nap. Sitting up, I looked around, momentarily disoriented. As soon as I was out of her way, Ryan jumped from the couch and ran out the door. It took me a minute to realize that I was alone in the game room. There was no one else in the room. Slowly, I stood and walked after Ryan. I had no idea what was going on, but I wanted to find out.

  Just as I was reaching for the door knob, the door flew inward, towards me so I jumped out of the way. Suddenly, people were pouring into the room. Men carrying other men, women fussing behind them. I stood to the side trying to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until I saw Ellis limping into the room with a hand on his thigh, blood slowly seeping through his fingers that I understood. Ryan had one of Ellis’s arms around her shoulders; I moved to quickly take up the other side. Ellis tried to shoo me away, telling me to help someone else, but I didn’t listen.

  Once we got him seated in one of the recliners, I looked around the room to see that there were at least five other men bleeding and being fussed over. I looked from the wounded men to Ellis to Ryan. When she glanced up and caught my eye, she shook her head, telling me not to ask or that she didn’t know what had happened either.

  “Go to Wrench’s office. There’s a cabinet in there filled with medical supplies. Bring back as much as you can carry,” Ryan instructed me, not waiting for someone else to take charge. I didn’t hesitate, running from the room, down the hall to the office. Thankfully, the door was unlocked; I threw i
t open and dug in the cabinet as soon as I reached it. I filled my arms with as many bandages and other supplies as I could before running back to Ryan. I dumped all the supplies in the chair nearest her, then returned for more supplies and took them to the other injured men and those who were taking care of them.

  I had no medical training, so I didn’t know what else I could do to be helpful. Deciding to make sure I didn’t leave a mess in Wrench’s office in my haste to get the supplies out, I went back one final time. I picked up a few items that had fallen out of my arms or off the shelves and placed them back where they belonged. As I was shutting the doors to the cabinet, I heard a groan. Turning on my heel, I looked around the room; it appeared empty, though. I stepped towards the door to leave and heard another groan. I knew I heard it that time.

  Walking around the office, I peered into every corner. As I rounded the desk, I found the source. It was Wrench, slumped in his chair, with a hand pressed against his side.

  “What the hell?” I couldn’t stop the words from spilling from my mouth as I rushed to his side.

  “Go. Help the others. I’m fine.” Wrench shoved my hands away when I tried to see how bad it was.

  “You’re hurt! They have plenty of people to take care of them. Why aren’t you in there where people can help take care of this?” I grabbed his thick wrist and pulled it away from his side to see he had blood soaking his shirt. “Shit. Come on. Let’s get these clothes off you.”

  “I was hoping to hear you say that.” Wrench smiled, but then grimaced as he sat forward on the chair.

  “Now is so not the time for that.” I rolled my eyes as we slowly managed to get off his cut, then I tossed it aside. Carefully grabbing onto the bottom of his shirt, I pulled it over his head and threw it on the floor in the same direction. Collapsing back against the chair again, Wrench let out a groan and closed his eyes.