He needn’t have worried. I wasn’t going anywhere, ever. I believed him about Topaz and actually trusted that he loved me. Four years ago I’d been sure that he loved me until that terrible night. He had shown me over and over again how he had felt then, just as he had shown me repeatedly over the last two weeks. A man who rarely showed emotion, had made sure that everyone who entered Hannigans’ was aware that I was his and he was mine. If that didn’t show me how much Spider cared, there was little else he could do to prove it.
“Spider…” I sucked in a few deep breaths to satisfy the burning in my lungs. He abandoned my lips so he wouldn’t smother me and trailed kisses down my neck. When he stopped to suck on the sensitive skin just below my right ear I had to concentrate harder to remember what I was going to say. Damn, the man knew how to distract me. “James…” That caught his attention and he raised his head.
“Hey.” He smiled down at me, making my heart melt at the love shining out of those black eyes. Had it been shining the whole time? I’d refused to see it until now.
“Hi.” I raised my hand and traced it over his nose, playing with the ring in the middle of it, and I raised my head to steal a quick kiss. “Can we finish talking before things get out of hand?” I was already on fire and my panties were soaking wet with my need for him. A few more kisses and I doubted we would be talking any more for a few days.
“What do you want to talk about?” His lips were no longer touching any part of me, but his hands were everywhere. Stroking up and down my sides, teasing across my throbbing nipples. Lifting the edge of my panties and tracing across the skin underneath.
Spider moved and his long, hard cock nudged against my center. The heat from his erection forced me to bite back a moan. “I…. I… Umm… I forget.”
His chuckle vibrated through his chest as well as my own. “You’re right. We do need to talk. I actually need to ask you something.” He stood and moved toward the bathroom. Damn it! That man’s body was so beautiful. My mouth watered at the thought of running my tongue over every inch of male perfection standing before me.
I watched as he picked up his jeans off the bathroom floor then came back to me. After pulling something out of his pocket, he sat down on the bed beside me and I sat up, curious as to what he had in his hand. It was small, fitting easily inside his fist. With his free hand Spider grasped my hand and brought it to his lips. I blinked, not expecting him to do something so sweet. “I should have asked you this four years ago, but I was still a scared kid back then. Being without you for so long, wanting you and loving you but too scared of fighting for you has shown me what it’s like to be only half alive. The last few weeks have been great, but there is something we can do to make it better. To make this perfect.”
My eyes widened and I realized that he was holding my left hand. Oh shit! Tears instantly filled my eyes and my chin began to tremble as he opened his hand and showed me a platinum engagement ring with the biggest diamond I’d ever seen in my life. “Marry me, Willa. I don’t just love you, I need you.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered as he slipped the ring onto my finger. “It’s beautiful.”
He grinned. “I want to tell you it’s a family heirloom, but it’s not. My uncle bought it for the girl he wanted to marry twenty years ago. She didn’t want the life that came with being an ol’ lady. Razor couldn’t return the ring and didn’t want it to go to waste, so he gave it to my mom to keep for when I decided to get married. When she found out you were the same girl who I was moping around about over four years ago, she gave me the ring and told me to man up.” Spider shook his head, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I’d recently met his mother and honestly she was the least mother-like woman in the world, so I could picture her telling her only son to man up and a hell of a lot more. “I’ve been walking around with this thing in my pocket for over a week now.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of the ring. It really was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The fit was nearly perfect, only slightly loose, but I preferred it that way. My monthly ‘friend’ would make sure that the ring fit snugly for at least a few days after all.
“Willa..?”
I frowned at the strained tone in Spider’s voice and reluctantly raised my gaze to meet his. His face was cloudy with what looked like worry. “What’s wrong?”
“You haven’t answered my question, baby.” When I continued to frown in confusion he blew out a frustrated breath. “Will you marry me, Willa?”
I gasped. “Oh.” In my daze over the beauty of the ring that was going to be on my finger for the rest of my life, I’d forgotten to do the most important thing. I threw my arms around his neck. “Yes, James. Yes, of course I want to marry you.”
He blew out a relieved sigh and held me tight against his chest. “Thank God. I thought you were trying to find a way to tell me no.” Spider buried his face in my hair. I felt a tremble shake his body and realized he really had been scared that I was going to say no.
“If you had asked me to marry you four years ago, I would have said yes.” I pushed against his chest so that I could move back enough to meet his eyes. What I was about to say was important. “I never would ask you to give up your MC. Not then, and definitely not now. It’s part of who you are, Spider. It’s made you the man you are today. I love you.”
“I love you too, Willa,” he whispered. “More than anything or anyone.”
“More than Raven?” I asked, but I was only teasing. I knew that what he felt for me was completely different from the love he had for Raven.
“A million times more than I love Raven,” he assured me with a grin.
I leaned in for a kiss, but before our lips touched I pulled back. “We aren’t going to live in your apartment much longer are we? As much as I’ve come to love that bed of yours, I’m not a fan of that part of town.”
“I’ll buy us a house. Any house you want,” Spider promised.
“Really?”
He nodded, too busy tasting my neck to bother with words. My breath hitched as his talented hands cupped my breasts. “There’s a house for sale down the street from Raven’s house…”
“If you like it then we will buy it.” He pinched my nipples, making me cry out in pleasure. “No more talking, Willa. I want to love you now.”
“No more talking,” I agreed. “I love you.”
“Fuck, baby. I love you, too.”
Chapter 17
Jet
I was getting tired of having surprise visitors. Each visit only left me aching and a little more destroyed than I was before. Now, as I walked toward the visitor’s room with my hands chained together and shackles on my feet along with a guard trailing behind me, I wondered who had come to fuck with my mind this time.
Raven’s visit had at least left me with something to look forward to when I got out of this hellhole: a niece or nephew who I was going to spoil as much as humanly possible. I knew that my baby sister was going to make a great mother. And as long as Bash kept her happy, then he would live long enough to see his second kid grow up.
It was Felicity’s visit that still haunted me and made my gut clench with a mixture of dread and hope. Hope that it was her in the visitor’s room. Dread that it wasn’t. When we reached the door to the visitor’s room a second guard waited to open it for me, but I shook my head. I needed a minute to prepare myself for whoever was inside waiting, possibly ready to rock my world all over again.
After a few minutes the guard got tired of waiting and opened the door anyway. I glared at him as I stepped through it and reluctantly glanced around until my eyes fell on the only person sitting in the room. My eyes widened and some of the dread I was feeling left as I spotted my brother. “Hawk?”
Hawk gave me a grim smile as he stood and we embraced quickly before the guard who had brought me from my cell separated us. “It’s good to see you, brother,” Hawk said as we took our seats at the table.
“How are you? How’s Raven? Colt? Raider?” I shook my hea
d, trying to remember the name of the girl who Raven had told me had become a big part of my siblings’ lives, but especially Hawk’s. “How’s… Gracie, is that her name?”
The change that seemed to come over my brother’s face was so unusual for the man I knew so well, that if Raven hadn’t explained the situation to me, I would have been concerned. Hawk wasn’t one to live by his emotions. He had always been the most closed off of the five of us. So when his whole body seemed to light up at just the mention of the female’s name, I knew he was in deep. “Gracie is dealing with some things. One being that Uncle Jack just happens to be her grandfather.”
I coughed, the air seeming to strangle me at the shocking news he had just delivered. “What the fuck?”
Hawk shrugged. “It’s a long story. One I would like to tell, but I don’t have time for today. When I called to get an appointment to see you they told me they only had a fifteen minute slot open.” His jaw clenched and my gut churned as I saw the way his face went from bright and happy to closed off and menacing. “I got a call Saturday night, Jet. Flick used a burner to call me.”
If he had stabbed me it would have hurt less. My hands clenched into tight fists and I bit back a string of violent curses that would have the guard calling a premature halt to the visit. “Is she okay? What did she want?” And why the fuck was she calling Hawk? Sure they had gotten kind of close—closer than I’d ever seen Hawk get to another human being. But I’d thought it was because I had made Hawk a part of something that few people knew about. That he had bonded with Felicity over the loss of our child—his niece or nephew. Could it have become more? Had Hawk hooked up with my female?
“She didn’t know who else to call. She needed a favor and I was the only one she could think of to get it to you in the right way.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I bit out. The right way? “If she needs a favor she could just call me, or better yet, come and see me.”
“She couldn’t call you because the calls are monitored.” Hawk glanced over my shoulder at the guard who was one of the better men that worked at San Quentin. He was on someone’s payroll other than the warden’s. Since I was a powerful asset to his boss, then I knew that I was safe with the man. However, that didn’t mean he needed to know my MC’s business.
Another pain stabbed through me and I had to remind myself that Angel’s Halo was no longer my MC. I’d given up the club and the life that went with it for reasons that I wasn’t sure I still had. Felicity was through with me, for good this time. Or until I found her.
“Don’t question this.” Hawk leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Just listen because I don’t have much time left.” I nodded and he went on. “Flick is working for a family that has a little girl…” As Hawk quickly told me what had happened, my whole body seemed to seize up and I knew before he had even gotten to the real reason Felicity had asked him to see me what the favor was going to be.
Having sweet, loving Felicity Bolton ask such a favor was enough to tell me how desperate the situation was. My jaw was so tight that my entire face started to ache. “Just get the word out. Let the right people know what the motherfucker did and he will be taken care of within a few days…”
I glared at my brother. “If Flick is asking me to do this then I will do it personally. But you know that if it’s not done right I won’t be getting out of here in a few weeks like I’m supposed to.” It was a warning, for him to break the news to our sister gently if it came to that. Raven missed me as much as I missed her. I felt like I had raised her and she was more my kid than my sister. “We’re talking a lot longer than a few years here, Hawk. I could spend the rest of my life in here if I don’t do this right.”
Hawk pounded a fist into the table between us. “Which is why you need to do what I suggested. Fuck this, Jet. If it wasn’t because of Flick I never would have even come here. You can do this without having to spend the rest of your life in this hellhole.”
There was a knock on the door and I knew that the visit was over. Grimacing, I stood and backed away from the table. “Tell Flick not to worry anymore. It’s done. She should know that I would do anything for her.”
“She shouldn’t be asking this,” Hawk growled. “As much as I love that girl, I hate her just as much right now.”
“Don’t. Hating isn’t an option. Loving her isn’t either. Love your Gracie, not Flick.”
Hawk’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Are you shitting me right now? Brother, you have to know that Flick—”
I cut him off. “I don’t claim to know anything anymore, Hawk. Tell Raven I love her.” With a nod of my head at the guard he opened the door and I walked back to my cell, already planning how I could handle this without getting an extension added to the time I was already serving.
The situation kept me up all night, and by morning I was calling in a few favors that would have done not only myself some good during the time I had to spend in San Quentin, but would have been good for Angel’s Halo down the road. I just hoped that after this, Felicity would realize she meant more to me than I had stupidly tried to make her think.
The yard was busy, as it normally was midmornings. There were men pumping iron on one part of the yard, while some were just sitting around getting some sun before having to spend the rest of the day either in their cells or doing their work duties. I sat at a table with the men I normally stuck with. They offered me protection from rival MCs that I’d pissed off over the years while I stood as a symbol of their own protection to their people on the outside.
I had a grin on my face, pretending to listen to the men around me. But my eyes were on the man standing by the fence with five men who were a lot like him. Junkies. Men that were in here because they had let drugs rule their lives. Some of them were necessarily bad people, but the one who I was looking at right then was possibly as bad as they came in my eyes. I let my hate power through me as I watched the man scratch at his arms.
Ten minutes later I was up, walking toward the gates with everyone else as we went inside for lunch. It was time, and by the end of the day I would know if I was going to be spending the rest of my life in San Quentin or not.
One of my men stood close as I eased my way through the crowd toward my prey. A man in front of me glanced up and nodded before bumping into the guy to his left. A grunt filled the air and I moved fast, punching the guy in the lower back three times. Startled, the guy turned, pain and rage filling his eyes. I let him hit me over and over again before fighting back. I didn’t let up, and the men around me gave me plenty of time to do the damage that needed doing before the guards could get to me.
A sharp pain sliced through my side and my grin was pure evil as I took the shank that someone had so generously supplied—and had cost me three huge favors that I’d been saving up for Bash and my MC brothers. Pulling the shank free, I had less than a second to see that it was a plastic comb melted down to a sharp point. In the next minute the shank disappeared into the guy’s chest and I was rewarded with a gurgle as blood quickly filled his lungs.
I pulled back enough to see his face. “For Lucy.” The words were just a whisper but I saw the startled look in the man’s eyes as he sucked in his last breath.
I didn’t get lunch that day. Instead I was in the infirmary all day. With Vince Grady pronounced dead, my story along with those of the men around me at the time had to be taken into account for what had happened. Self-defense. It was the story I was sticking to, and with the six stitches needed to close up the wound on my side where someone had stabbed me to make it look like Grady had shanked me, it was a plausible story.
By dinnertime the guards and warden let me know that it was being written up as self-defense and I went back to my cell hoping that Felicity’s boss could sleep at night now.
Acknowledgements
As always I want to thank my amazing team of BETA readers. Mellie, Jennie, Felicity, Nikki, and Melanie. I couldn’t get through a book without their guidance and helpful inp
ut. They help make each book that much more wonderful and the friendship I have made with these five women has become ones that I value sincerely.
Thank you to my husband, Mike Browning, for standing behind me and putting up with me through all the mood swings that comes with writing a book. You are my rock and I don’t know how to get through the day without you.
More by Terri Anne Browning
The Rocker… Series
The Rocker That Holds Me
The Rocker That Savors Me
The Rocker That Needs Me
The Rocker that Loves Me
The Rocker That Holds Her
Angel’s Halo MC Series
Angel’s Halo
Coming Soon
The Rocker Who Wants Me
Terri Anne Browning, Angel's Halo: Entangled
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